Bush Admits to Authorizing Wiretaps

[OGLE B]

Hey Toronado, HA HA HA HA HA. Looser. What a bunch of crybaby liberials on this site. You honestly think Kerry would be a better President! He lost, get over it. Bush is doing the right things to protect America.

 

[Tornado]

You honestly think Kerry would be a better President! He lost, get over it. Bush is doing the right things to protect America.

I wasn't talking about Kerry you moron. Kerry did lose the democratic election. Al Gore did not. And I see you haven't replied about the laws Bush has broken. So who is the "loser" (a single "O")?

 

[Solid Fro]

Heres on for you. How about when he was elected a government official undemocratically? Or maybe when he refused to fire Karl Rove instantly when he was accused of treason (which, in case you don't know, makes Bush an accomplice to a capital crime)? Or maybe when he appointed a judge to the Supreme Court (Miers) who basically got the job because they were friends? Or maybe, just maybe, when he invaded the country of Iraq without probable cause of anything?

Around and around they go, when do the Liberals stop? Nobody knows!

Show me where the Electoral College is undemocratic?

Show me what crime did Karl Rove commit?

Show me where Harriet Miers got Supreme Court nomination for just being "friends" with President Bush and not on her qualifications?

Show me when UN Resolution 1441 and the Iraq Liberation Act became invalid?

 

[OGLE B]

Extra "O" for emphasis Toronado, as in LOOOOOOSER. Got it?

Didn't think so.

By the way, what's Algore up to since he lost the election?

Oh yea, losing - his mind! HA HA HA!

As far as the wire tapping, turns out Mr. Clinton (as well as other Presidents before him) were doing the same thing.

Why is it that liberals always accuse others of doing what they themselves are guilty of ???

Good post Viper!

 

[Tornado]

Show me where the Electoral College is undemocratic?

It's undemocratice when the American people themselves vote for someone but the Electoral College votes for someone else and that someone else wins.

Show me what crime did Karl Rove commit?

Here. Newsweek confirmed it was Rove later, yet he is still in office.

Rove has been a frequent target of critics of the Bush administration, and is now embroiled in a scandal as political foes, including Joe Wilson, accuse him of the unauthorized and possibly felonious disclosure of Valerie Plame (Wilson's wife) as an undercover CIA agent to Time Magazine reporter Matthew Cooper in retaliation for Wilson's criticisms of the administration. Rove has acknowledged speaking to Cooper, but denies any wrongdoing. Rove had earlier kept silent while the White House, citing his personal assurances, emphatically denied he had any role in the leak. On October 28, 2005, special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald announced the indictment of Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Chief of Staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, in relation to an investigation requested by the CIA. Rove has not been indicted, but remains a subject of the investigation.

Leaking information about government operatives is treason.

Show me where Harriet Miers got Supreme Court nomination for just being "friends" with President Bush and not on her qualifications?

Here you go.

Show me when UN Resolution 1441 and the Iraq Liberation Act became invalid?

When it was determined that Iraq didn't actually have weapons of mass destruction by UN inspectiors and that there was no evidence that they ever did.

 

[Solid Fro]

It's undemocratice when the American people themselves vote for someone but the Electoral College votes for someone else and that someone else wins.

Checks and Balances. Read up on it. Don't like it, don't vote, simple isn't it?

Leaking information about government operatives is treason.

If you have evidence of Rove committing a crime, you might want to have a chat with Fitzgerald. I'm sure the Justice Department can get you two in touch.

Here you go.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush on Thursday accepted the withdrawal of Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers after weeks of opposition from both liberals and conservatives, who questioned her qualifications and record.

Boy did you pick the wrong headline to defend your argument.

When it was determined that Iraq didn't actually have weapons of mass destruction by UN inspectiors and that there was no evidence that they ever did.

Oh, really?

http://www.kdp.pp.se/chemical.html [Graphic Photos]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction

 

[niky]

Point there, definitely. The Electoral College elects who they elect. They may not represent the population accurately, but that's due to historical precedent, and no one's going to change it. So it stays.

And the leak was treason. Done for very partisan reasons. I'm sure the truth will come out eventually, but nothing may ever come of it.

Show me where Harriet Miers got Supreme Court nomination for just being "friends" with President Bush and not on her qualifications?

Jesus, will you liberal-bashers knock it off already? Both of you.

I hardly watch news concerning US Politics and I STILL know about this one. And yes, Bush accepted her withdrawal but only because of pressure from his partymates. Miers has no published work, has not passed any resolutions or written any treatises on law. It's tantamount to putting a bench player off a high-school basketball team straight onto the starting line-up of the Spurs. "We put him there basically because we think he's a nice guy."

In a speech he cited having "known" Miers for the past ten years and his judgement of her character as his reasons for nominating her.

And all this came after the whole "Katrina" issue. Another Bush nominee, who was exposed has having insufficient qualifications to run FEMA. Also someone Bush had "known" for the past ten years.

_______

AND WILL PEOPLE PLEASE STOP QUOTING WIKIPEDIA

I have always maintained that anything on Wikipedia ought to be taken with a grain of salt, and the article you cited on WMDs is tagged. That means that it isn't all factual, and some object to the opinions implied therein.

The reasons for cited for the Iraqi war were the possesion and capacity to use WMDs at the time. Saying that abandoned but not completely destroyed facilities constitutes a clear and present danger is almost the same as saying the US has the capacity to open up the closed Three Mile Island reactor again (was that reactor 1 or 2? bugger it). There is a grain of truth, but it doesn't constitute fact.

_______

I do not always disagree with what Bush does. I want him to stay in Iraq, and I think he's doing the right thing staying there until the situation stabilizes. Most of the other politicians (both Dem and Republican) are being too impatient. Proper rebuilding and stabilisation may take another year or two. We owe it to the Iraqi people to stay the hard course and make sure they have a fighting chance of maintaining control of their own country.

But the ridiculous idea some of you have of his infallibility is just pathetic. Get off the high horse and smell the dirt.

_______

And as for the other Presidents doing it. Hell, sue all of them. Bring them all to court. Sue Kennedy, too, he was way too fond of covert operations of questionable legality.

No one has a right to go beyond the constitution. Like I've said previously, to uphold the law, you must follow it. And if that doesn't work, change it.

As the reactions of various politicians shows, it's not just liberals versus hawks that is the issue, it's civil rights vs. security. So will you all just shut up and stick to the topic.

I personally do NOT mind wiretaps. But you can't force the possible invasion of privacy of warrantless wiretaps on everyone else, especially since there is a legal process that allows it anyway. Once you have enough evidence on a suspect to consider wiretapping him/her, it should be enough for the judge, too.

 

[Solid Fro]

Maybe people can't accept the truth.

I will continue to use Wikipedia as a source of credible information. Any false information can be corrected instantly. If you find anything wrong with the information and believe you have new evidence, then edit it.

It is that simple.

 

[niky]

Maybe people can't accept the truth.

I will continue to use Wikipedia as a source of credible information. Any false information can be corrected instantly. If you find anything wrong with the information and believe you have new evidence, then edit it.

It is that simple.

Yes, and those people are?

Truth is, surveillance without a warrant is unconstitutional. Period. That's what got Nixon kicked out. Of course, Nixon's only crime was that he got caught. The bone of contention here is, whatever the legislature votes or has voted on the issue, the President can merely sidestep procedure. I say, if it's that big of a problem, pass it through Congress. Amend the Constitution.

If I find anything I don't like in Wikipedia, I could change it, but that would merely be making it conform to my opinion. And that's the problem with the site. Anyone with a bone to pick or a statement to make can post it on Wikipedia and pass it off as a fact. I could enter Wikipedia and change that article to two words: "War Sucks". Then someone comes along and changes it to two other words: "Liberals Blow". I may sometimes look at it, but I never ever put my trust in any Wikipedia article. The fact that any Wikipedia article can start off quoting a reliable or official source verbatim, and then be edited down the line by anybody means that some of them may be misleading.

It's that complicated.

 

[Solid Fro]

So, you don't like the truth? You rather call it someone's "opinion" when it doesn't fit your political agenda? If you can't trust Wikipedia, then how can you trust any other source of information? You are at the mercy of the author. With Wikipedia, any misinformation can be corrected instantly.

You probably will want to read the FAQ at Wikipedia. They have already gone in depth about the criticisms you brought up.

 

[FoolKiller]

To try and keep this thread on track I am posting an update on this story that I just read from Fox News' Brit Hume.

‘Reread the Constitution’?

Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy has said the vice president "ought to reread the constitution" if he thinks President Bush can approve domestic surveillance without congressional oversight or a court order.

But Institute for Homeland Security director Randy Larsen says that on the day after 9-11, with the Pentagon still smoldering, Kennedy invited Larsen to his office for a briefing and asked Larsen whether the attacks meant that the government should unleash the NSA and CIA inside the United States. After a pause, Larsen says he told the Senator "we may have to look at that, but we'd need a lot of oversight." Senator Kennedy could not be reached for comment.

And according to CBS News from Sunday night the NSA is also tapping domestic lines, not just international lines. I saw the story on the news and they made it sound like it was big news, but I have been dealing with telecommunications for years and was aware of this kind of thing. They monitor for red flags and then use probable cause to justify reading or listening to your entire correspondence.

(CBS/AP) The National Security Agency has conducted much broader surveillance of e-mails and phone calls without court orders than the Bush administration has acknowledged, The New York Times reported on its Web site.

The NSA, with help from American telecommunications companies, obtained access to streams of domestic and international communications, said the Times in the report late Friday, citing unidentified current and former government officials.

And apparently this story on CNN says that Colin Powell supports Bush in this but thinks that even just a blanket court order could have saved a lot of trouble.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Former Secretary of State Colin Powell on Sunday supported government eavesdropping to prevent terrorism but said a major controversy over presidential powers could have been avoided by obtaining court warrants.

Now, I would like to suggest that we quit bickering over unrelated issues, such as Wikipedia or making it into a political party issue. If someone chooses to use Wikipedia as a source then take it as you will and just say that due to its nature you find it to be unreliable and if you are the one using Wikipedia you should be able to back up your Wikipedia information with other sources. It is far from an end all-be all resource, but it is very informative as well. Please lay this issue to rest as I am sure this is not what Danoff intended this thread for.

As for this being a political party issue; no it isn't. This is something that presidents have been doing for years in every adminstration (and allegedly Ted Kennedy wanted it), so by saying that it is just another example of the Bush administration tossing the Constitution out the window is wrong. Every president in my lifetime has used presidential authority to do this, which I disagree with, and they get away with it by reading into the language of the Constitution for a loophole. This case may bring this to light and a court will define the meaning of the Constitution on this issue.

If anyone finds that this kind of thing is new or surprising you must have been blind for the last 20 years at least. I have always been involved with computers and studied telecommunications in college. I assumed it was common knowledge that this could be and was being done. I had heard that the communications companies allowed access to this information before Bush was elected (college Freshman year, 1997-98 to be exact).

Also consider this: technology is becoming more and more wireless. There is no need to tap into things to monitor people now, just have a handy receiver set up and you can listen in or interecept emails without slowing them down.

None of this is new and as much as I hate the idea of them doing this I doubt it will stop any time soon.


Viper Zero, I do have a question for you. Please don't overreact or accuse me of Bush bashing or being a liberal because if you read many of my posts in other threads you will know that I am the opposite. I just happen to disgaree with you and the president on this issue.

You believe that this is a good step in securing and protecting the United States, but are you protecting the United States and its idea if you must throw out or ignore parts of its Constitution? I believe that is the differnce in opinion is how people define the 4th Amendment.

But if it helps to stop terrorists to take away weapons or stifle freedom of speech is that also OK? By being willing to bend the 4th Amendment or use a language loophole you have then broken the 9th Amendment.

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

The authors of the Constitution saw the possibilty of loopholes, language definition, and other legal wranglings being used to to try and sidestep rights for the preservation of other rights and thus added that this should not be done. The 9th Amendment is there to prevent just this sort of thing from going on. This is the same reason why you cannot take guns away to prevent murder or prevent free speech to stop the KKK or neo-Nazis.

If you remove a right in the name of freedom you have become less free. The founders of this country saw that and I must agree with them.

 

[Solid Fro]

New York Time's Op-Ed peice:

Unwarranted Complaints

By DAVID B. RIVKIN and LEE A. CASEY
Published: December 27, 2005

SHORTLY after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush ordered surveillance of international telephone communications by suspected members of Al Qaeda overseas, even if such calls also involved individuals within the United States. This program was adopted by direct presidential order and was subject to review every 45 days. Judicial warrants for this surveillance were neither sought nor obtained, although key members of Congress were evidently informed. The program's existence has now become public, and howls of outrage have ensued. But in fact, the only thing outrageous about this policy is the outrage itself.

The president has the constitutional authority to acquire foreign intelligence without a warrant or any other type of judicial blessing. The courts have acknowledged this authority, and numerous administrations, both Republican and Democrat, have espoused the same view. The purpose here is not to detect crime, or to build criminal prosecutions - areas where the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirements are applicable - but to identify and prevent armed attacks on American interests at home and abroad. The attempt, by Democrats and Republicans alike, to dismantle the president's core constitutional power in wartime is wrongheaded and should be vigorously resisted by the administration.

After all, even the administration's sternest critics do not deny the compelling need to collect intelligence about Al Qaeda's plans so we can thwart future attacks. So instead of challenging the program on policy grounds, most have focused on its legal propriety, specifically Mr. Bush's decision not to follow the framework established by the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

In an effort to control counterintelligence activities in the United States during the cold war, the surveillance act established a special court, known as the FISA court, with authority to issue wiretapping warrants. Instead of having to show that it has "probable cause" to believe criminal activity is taking place (which is required to obtain a warrant in an ordinary investigation), the government can get a warrant from the FISA court when there is probable cause to believe the target of surveillance is a foreign power or its agent.

Although the administration could have sought such warrants, it chose not to for good reasons. The procedures under the surveillance act are streamlined, but nevertheless involve a number of bureaucratic steps. Furthermore, the FISA court is not a rubber stamp and may well decline to issue warrants even when wartime necessity compels surveillance. More to the point, the surveillance act was designed for the intricate "spy versus spy" world of the cold war, where move and countermove could be counted in days and hours, rather than minutes and seconds. It was not drafted to deal with the collection of intelligence involving the enemy's military operations in wartime, when information must be put to immediate use.

Indeed, it is highly doubtful whether individuals involved in a conflict have any "reasonable expectation of privacy" in their communications, which is the touchstone of protection under both the Fourth Amendment and the surveillance act itself - anymore than a tank commander has a reasonable expectation of privacy in his communications with his commanders on the battlefield. The same goes for noncombatants swept up in the hostilities.

Even if Congress had intended to restrict the president's ability to obtain intelligence in such circumstances, it could not have constitutionally done so. The Constitution designates the president as commander in chief, and Congress can no more direct his exercise of that authority than he can direct Congress in the execution of its constitutional duties. As the FISA court itself noted in 2002, the president has "inherent constitutional authority to conduct warrantless foreign intelligence surveillance."

In this instance, in addition to relying on his own inherent constitutional authority, the president can also draw upon the specific Congressional authorization "to use all necessary and appropriate force" against those responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks "in order to prevent any future attacks of international terrorism against the United States." These words are sufficiently broad to encompass the gathering of intelligence about the enemy, its movements, its abilities and its plans, a core part of the use of force against Al Qaeda and its allies. The authorization does not say that the president can order the use of artillery, or air strikes, yet no one is arguing that therefore Mr. Bush is barred from doing so.

The fact that the statutory language does not specifically mention intelligence collection, or that this matter was not raised by the White House in negotiations with Congress, or even that the administration had sought even broader language, all points recently raised by former Senator Tom Daschle, is irrelevant.

Overall, this surveillance program is fully within the president's legal authority, is limited in scope (involving communications to or from overseas related to the war against Al Qaeda), and is subject to stringent presidential review. The contretemps its revelation has caused reveals much more about the chattering classes' fundamental antipathy to strong government in general, and strong executive power in particular, than it does about presidential overreaching.

The Constitution's framers did not vest absolute power in any branch of the federal government, including the courts, but they did create a strong executive and equipped the office with sufficient authority to act energetically to defend the national interest in wartime. That is what President Bush has done, and nothing more.

 

[ledhed]

I am still patiently waiting to see the first instance of a law being broken or even twisted . Or am I the only one who thinks this whole issue was designed to posture the Democrats for future elections ?

Just like the " seemingly " coincidental outburst by the dems about pulling out of Iraq..right beffore the Dec. elections there .....when they knew that a success in iraq is bad for them and that successfull elections would mean a scaling back of troops anyway .
But then again they are politics that the other party should have forseen...could it be Carl Rove is asleep at the wheel ? Must have partied too much after he didnt get indicted .

 

[Solid Fro]

Democrats putting American soldiers in danger for political gain? Tell me something new, ledhed!

I want to know who leaked this classified NSA program to the New York Times. The Liberal Media believes it is not OK to leak information, unless to damage the Bush administration.

Let hypocrisy ensue!

 

[niky]

Democrats putting American soldiers in danger for political gain? Tell me something new, ledhed!

I want to know who leaked this classified NSA program to the New York Times. The Liberal Media believes it is not OK to leak information, unless to damage the Bush administration.

Let hypocrisy ensue!

I was about to say that the Op-Ed piece you'd quoted was quite insightful... but then you had to go post stuff like this again. You just quoted a newspaper editorial and then went on to bash the "Liberal Media"?

The media does what it does. I've already posted an opinion as to why I think that particular researcher waited so long.

I still don't see the "Liberal" Media. Every single US action in the Middle East before this one, all the US Cable News Networks were seriously hawkish, carrying patriotic slogans and trite labels for the wars. They ate it up like candy... and loved it. I sometimes had to turn to BBC to get less hype and more sober information.

Media is media. They'll serve any interest that generates numbers.

 

[Solid Fro]

I still don't see the "Liberal" Media. Every single US action in the Middle East before this one, all the US Cable News Networks were seriously hawkish, carrying patriotic slogans and trite labels for the wars. They ate it up like candy... and loved it. I sometimes had to turn to BBC to get less hype and more sober information.

I nearly choked on my drink.

 

[Kylehnat]

Then maybe you should stop drinking, because what Niky said is right. The media in this country is completely ass-backwards from what it should be. There is left-biased media, and there is right-biased media. The descrepancies between the two is sickening. The news coverage from the likes of CNN and Fox News after 9/11 and at the beginning of the Iraq war was downright jingoistic. I'm not proposing any government influence, but at the beginning of the Iraq war, only good news was reported, while the horrors that always accompany a war were kept from the American public. There was outrage at al-Jazeera for showing the wounded and dead. Why? I have no idea. What they were showing was not altered in any way. It was real. But the fact that the American media chose to only report one side of the story opened a lot of people's eyes (including mine) to the fact that the media was not doing its job, and that there was more to the story than what they were telling us. Unfortunately, since most of this country can't pull its ass away from the TV and look for answers elsewhere, these slanted views have become accepted as "fact", with each side dismissing the other.

 

[Solid Fro]

But the fact that the American media chose to only report one side of the story opened a lot of people's eyes (including mine) to the fact that the media was not doing its job, and that there was more to the story than what they were telling us.

What is the other side?

 

[ledhed]

Then maybe you should stop drinking, because what Niky said is right. The media in this country is completely ass-backwards from what it should be. There is left-biased media, and there is right-biased media. The descrepancies between the two is sickening. The news coverage from the likes of CNN and Fox News after 9/11 and at the beginning of the Iraq war was downright jingoistic. I'm not proposing any government influence, but at the beginning of the Iraq war, only good news was reported, while the horrors that always accompany a war were kept from the American public. There was outrage at al-Jazeera for showing the wounded and dead. Why? I have no idea. What they were showing was not altered in any way. It was real. But the fact that the American media chose to only report one side of the story opened a lot of people's eyes (including mine) to the fact that the media was not doing its job, and that there was more to the story than what they were telling us. Unfortunately, since most of this country can't pull its ass away from the TV and look for answers elsewhere, these slanted views have become accepted as "fact", with each side dismissing the other.

I watched BBC and Al-Jazeera to get a bit of balance but if you live in the friggin US and you are watching a pay for veiw ( CABLE / Sattelite ) station or a station that has to be sponsored ABC -NBC etc. then you get what we have now ...competition for viewers...and a Liberal or Conservative slant and in a time of WAR ..especially when 80 % of the American people are FOR the war you get reporting by people who live in America and are reporting to Americans just like the reporting we got . You want to see the horrors of war ? join the friggin military ...whats that got to do with reporting ? You can only report after the fact unless you get unlucky and are with the troops when all hell breaks loose ...or you are unlucky enough to be with the Iraqis when they get wiped out...I didnt see many reporters embeded with the Iraqis so that they could report on how horrible it was to see them vaporized or tenderized . The reporters were with the side that was doing all the ass kicking..so thats what they reported.
maybe you expected a few American reporters to risk getting thier heads chopped off or blown off by trying to report from the OTHER side ? If so you are friggin delusional .

 

[niky]

What I expect to see is the war from the point of view of the US Military and the Iraqi populace. It wasn't all "ass-kicking" as you call it... a lot of civilians were caught in the cross-fire.

And bingo, that's it. Networks do tend to show viewers what they want, and when viewers were gung-ho for the war, that's what the networks gave them. That's all I'm trying to point out... Media is not "Liberal" or "Conservative"... they're Sensationalist. They serve up whatever will generate numbers. They tend to inflate issues, whatever they are, as long as they're hot at the time. I cited BBC because they were sort of neutral about the whole thing at the time. Of course, I don't know whether they are impartial over British issues, but I'm not fit to judge that.

And, @ViperZero... despite the other points we may disagree on, I tend to agree with what the article pointed out... if Congress did give Bush extraordinary powers that would blanket cover wiretapping without warrants, then I suppose that's it... case closed. That would mean he had Congressional support. It would have been much better if a blanket warrant was issued, anyway, but with all the fog around the issue now, that's a moot point.

 

[Solid Fro]

And, @ViperZero... despite the other points we may disagree on, I tend to agree with what the article pointed out... if Congress did give Bush extraordinary powers that would blanket cover wiretapping without warrants, then I suppose that's it... case closed. That would mean he had Congressional support. It would have been much better if a blanket warrant was issued, anyway, but with all the fog around the issue now, that's a moot point.

That's right. The Opposition Party and the Liberal Media in the United States is sensationalizing something out of nothing.

 

[niky]

Change that to the "Opportunist" Media, and we're in total agreement.

 

[Danoff]

Viper,

Thanks for posting this article. It is very informative, even though it misunderstands the situation.

[/size][/font] The president has the constitutional authority to acquire foreign intelligence without a warrant or any other type of judicial blessing. The courts have acknowledged this authority, and numerous administrations, both Republican and Democrat, have espoused the same view. The purpose here is not to detect crime, or to build criminal prosecutions - areas where the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirements are applicable - but to identify and prevent armed attacks on American interests at home and abroad. The attempt, by Democrats and Republicans alike, to dismantle the president's core constitutional power in wartime is wrongheaded and should be vigorously resisted by the administration.

The president may have the constitutional authority to gather foreign intelligence, but he doesn’t have the constitutional authority to gather domestic intelligence. Wiretapping American citizens is not the same as listening in on communist soviet military or Al Qaeda attack plans. “Foreign” is the key word here.

In an effort to control counterintelligence activities in the United States during the cold war, the surveillance act established a special court, known as the FISA court, with authority to issue wiretapping warrants. Instead of having to show that it has "probable cause" to believe criminal activity is taking place (which is required to obtain a warrant in an ordinary investigation), the government can get a warrant from the FISA court when there is probable cause to believe the target of surveillance is a foreign power or its agent.

Although the administration could have sought such warrants, it chose not to for good reasons. The procedures under the surveillance act are streamlined, but nevertheless involve a number of bureaucratic steps. Furthermore, the FISA court is not a rubber stamp and may well decline to issue warrants even when wartime necessity compels surveillance. More to the point, the surveillance act was designed for the intricate "spy versus spy" world of the cold war, where move and countermove could be counted in days and hours, rather than minutes and seconds. It was not drafted to deal with the collection of intelligence involving the enemy's military operations in wartime, when information must be put to immediate use.

This is a pathetic justification for eroding the freedom of American citizens and growing government interference. The system was set up for the Cold War? The system is slow?? FIX IT!! That’s the JOB of the people in charge here.

As the FISA court itself noted in 2002, the president has "inherent constitutional authority to conduct warrantless foreign intelligence surveillance."

Foreign being a key word here.

In this instance, in addition to relying on his own inherent constitutional authority, the president can also draw upon the specific Congressional authorization "to use all necessary and appropriate force" against those responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks "in order to prevent any future attacks of international terrorism against the United States." These words are sufficiently broad to encompass the gathering of intelligence about the enemy, its movements, its abilities and its plans, a core part of the use of force against Al Qaeda and its allies. The authorization does not say that the president can order the use of artillery, or air strikes, yet no one is arguing that therefore Mr. Bush is barred from doing so.

The authorization is to use force against those who are responsible and gather foreign intelligence. This is not an authorization to violate the rights of American citizens.

The Constitution's framers did not vest absolute power in any branch of the federal government, including the courts, but they did create a strong executive and equipped the office with sufficient authority to act energetically to defend the national interest in wartime. That is what President Bush has done, and nothing more.

…with sufficient authority to act energetically to defend the national interest in wartime yes. But what constitutes defending the national interest?

 

[Danoff]

Bush says no domestic calls were tapped - no mention of international calls
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/05/16/bush.calls.ap/index.html

Apparently the NSA gathered a database of call logs from major phone companies. One or two of whom held out.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-nsa_x.htm

Check this out:

Trying to put pressure on Qwest, NSA representatives pointedly told Qwest that it was the lone holdout among the big telecommunications companies. It also tried appealing to Qwest's patriotic side: In one meeting, an NSA representative suggested that Qwest's refusal to contribute to the database could compromise national security, one person recalled.

In addition, the agency suggested that Qwest's foot-dragging might affect its ability to get future classified work with the government. Like other big telecommunications companies, Qwest already had classified contracts and hoped to get more.

Nice! A little threat to try to get them to ignore their ethical concerns.

Bush says none of this is being used to examine the personal lives of Americans.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/05/11/nsa.phonerecords.ap/index.html
Plus, Bellsouth densies providing information:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/05/15/bellsouth.nsa/index.html
But Verison doesn't exactly deny it:
http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2156024/verizon-distances-itself-nsa
No comment from AT&T.

So presumably the government needed the call logs to isolate international calls to target for wiretapping. Here's my beef with the situation - we have a legal process. We have courts for a reason, we have warrants for a reason - and the refusal to work through the courts suggests to me that they think it'll take too long and they may not get the warrant.

To that I say tough. That's the process. You want a better process? Fine, work it out with the other branches. But the judiciary needs to stay in the loop - without them there are no longer "checks and balances" protecting these particular civil liberties.

The scenario we need to avoid is the ability of government officials to violate the rights of citizens. Like being able to get their phone records, authorize a wiretap, and detain them at Gitmo without due process just because someone along the line "suspected" them of terrorist activities. If anyone who is suspect can be monitored and/or arrested without substantiantion of those claims - it leaves the door open for huge abuses of power.

 

[FoolKiller]

I have issues with the government being able to just go and take my phone records without having to bring in any legal paperwoirk whatsoever. To start with it definitly offers a chance for my privacy and civil liberties to be violated. While they may have not been listening in I am sure people don't want who they call to be public record of any form.

Then there is the fact that when I think of America I do not ever picture this sort of thing happening. This is the kind of thing that the American idea is against. Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and all your phone records watched.

 

[Kylehnat]

Bush said they weren't concerned with domestic calls, and now the NSA has billions of domestic call logs??

I'm sick of his lies.

 

[Swift]

Bush said they weren't concerned with domestic calls, and now the NSA has billions of domestic call logs??

I'm sick of his lies.

You all know this has been going on for decades, right? It's not like Bush just started this a few monts ago or something.

My problem with it is simple, either we're free or we are not. You can't be free and have government monitoring at the same time. Now, this isn't "exacatly" monitoring, but that's also the problem. They are in the gray area that can be "rationalised" or "justified" for security reasons.

Now, if they got the phone records for every phone number that had ties to a known or suspect terrorist, that's totally different. But just amassing incredible amounts of phone records(that are pretty much public info anyway) simply isn't cool.

Though I've tried to back Bush in his administration, his actions here and with illegal immigration make that support impossible for me.

 

[Danoff]

Bush said they weren't concerned with domestic calls, and now the NSA has billions of domestic call logs??

I'm sick of his lies.

Yup, it looks bad. But don't jump the gun. Bush hasn't been implicated in the NSA call log scandal. Plus, there's a possibility that even if he was implicated in that scandal, the call logs were for the purpose of tracking down suspect international calls.

I'm not saying Bush is in the clear. He's already in trouble for authorizing tapping of international calls without a warrant. But I'm not ready to pronounce him guilty of tapping domestic calls before he's even been implicated in this scandal - let alone found guilty of tapping domestic calls.

 

[FoolKiller]

Yup, it looks bad. But don't jump the gun. Bush hasn't been implicated in the NSA call log scandal. Plus, there's a possibility that even if he was implicated in that scandal, the call logs were for the purpose of tracking down suspect international calls.

That's what they say the call logs are for. Supposedly no domestic calls are being listened in on unless there are repeated calls to suspected/known terror cells in or outside the US.

I'm not saying Bush is in the clear. He's already in trouble for authorizing tapping of international calls without a warrant. But I'm not ready to pronounce him guilty of tapping domestic calls before he's even been implicated in this scandal - let alone found guilty of tapping domestic calls.

Bush said he authorized the NSA to do this himself. So, he admits to the log gathering, but if there are any domestic tappings going on they have denied that and no allegations have been brought up.

Bush also claims that he cleared this with leaders in Congress first, but I have yet to see or hear one admit to that.


Now there is a lawsuit against Verizon, AT&T, and Bellsouth. I am in full support of this lawsuit because they did not have to give these logs over. Quest Communications denied access to those logs becuase of privacy concerns. Any of the other companies that turned these over could have done the same thing.


Swift, I am aware that this sort of thing has probably gone on for a while, but the collected database is a new thing. That's why I think that every one of these hearings is just political wrangling and Bush opponents hope that this will just knock out any of his Congressional supporters in the elections. In other words, politicians are all hypocrits and this is just their latest back and forth.

 

[ledhed]

They took a bunch of raw data and went looking for PATTERNS to indicate who was calling to ...say PAKISTAN to and from or AFGHANISTAN ...etc...this has been going on since the 1980 's....so why the sudden uproar ?

Its a Bush's fault...hehehehe...