America... Spying on Americans

Thanks for your wellthought response, Finn.

I suppose, I belong to a different group, since it might well be that I'm seriously stamped by the time I served in (our) juridical system: if there's a law, that law must be obeyed.

I francly admit that I was one of those, who liked to find wholes in that law ... making my work easier = foresighted. (I usually said that I was moving in the grey zone of a law, never that I disregarde or 'only' bypassed it.

However, I strongly believe: if a law doesn't work the way policy wants it to work, politicans must change it.

If they can't - e.g. due to constitutional barriers - they either must change the constituion or try to find other ways.

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Re: Wiretap Furor Widens Republican Divide

BumbleBeeBoogie wrote:

Wiretap Furor Widens Republican Divide

While Security Camp Claims Justification,
Civil Libertarians See an Intrusion on Rights
By NEIL KING JR.
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
December 22, 2005; Page A4

WASHINGTON -- President Bush's claim that he has a legal right to eavesdrop on ...

Since 1978, Congress has required the executive branch to seek warrants through a secret federal court for domestic eavesdropping on foreigners or U.S. citizens suspected of terrorism or espionage. Such permission is all but automatic and usually is granted within hours. The court granted warrants at the rate of almost five a day last year -- and rejected none.

President Bush and his top aides argued this week that they were on solid legal ground in ordering -- without going through the secret court -- large-scale eavesdropping of communications between the U.S. and other countries to thwart potential terrorist attacks. .....

--Anne Marie Squeo contributed to this article.

Five per day? Five per day for 11 judges?

Makes me think time may not have been such a big issue. If that's all they were taking to the secret court, surely they had time to write up a few more requests to avoid breaking any laws.

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parados wrote:

Finn d'Abuzz wrote:
parados wrote:
What does it require to make a statement that x was found on y's computer and y is a foreign agent so we need to have survellience of x. The FISA court is very lenient in its warrant process. Basically if the President asks they will provide.

The biggest threat is in not getting a warrant. Without the warrant anything gathered can't be used in any court. It creates a system where you have to jail without trial or release them. This is completely contrary to what the US stands for.

If the surveillance was intended to develop and prosecute a criminal case against an individual, the lack of a warrant would be of concern, but it is not. It is intended for use in identifying and interrupting planned attacks on this country.

What do you propose we do with people found to be planning an attack then? Let them go merrily on their way? Or are you proposing we incarcerate them without trial? Either way is MORE of a threat to the US in the long run.

Hopefully, in the foiling of their plans they will be killed in a fire fight with the FBI, but as that is not likely to happen, I am most worried about simply foiling their plans. Once they have been identified as potential threats they can be kept under continued surveillance and the necessary evidence can be obtained to prosecute them.

If we find that they are planning attacks against us then I don't have much difficulty with detaining them without trial, and I don't agree that doing so presents a greater threat to the US in the long run.

If detention without trial is limited to those who are planning on attacking our country, how is the nation harmed?

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It's not so simple, unfortunatley. The so called wall between intelligence and criminal investigations doesn't exist anymore so it is conceivable that the government could use data gathered this way to eventually prosecute for domestic crimes. My concern is that at some point, all these dots can be connected (and I don't mean the ones the president talks about).

The president can order surveillance without a warrant.
The president can designate a US citizen an enemy combatant
Enemy combatants are not afforded constitutional rights.

I'm trying not to be paranoid, but it appears that in giving up one liberty -- the right to be secure against unreasonable search and seizure -- we might also be giving up our rights to due process and habeas corpus. It's possible that the Supreme Court will sort all this out. I certainly hope so. But in the mean time it seems that it wouldn't be so difficult to grant too much power to the executive during this time of "emergency" that might not be easily taken back. You know what the conservatives say about government programs. It's true also for executive power.

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Ticomaya wrote:

blatham wrote:
, and I spat at his avatar and stopped.

Well ..... I'll have you know I fart in your general direction on a regular basis.

I'm 19 floors up and haven't noticed. You'll have to fart much harder.

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Foiling terrorism sounds like a nice goal, but the fact is, in the US, that the chance of dying from terrorism is about equivalent to that of dying from a lightning strike.

Perhaps we should wiretap all of the passing clouds.

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There must be oversight of some kind. Without oversight, abuses are almost guaranteed to occur.

I don't like any single entity having the power to be cop, judge, and jury in deciding who gets locked up.

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Walter Hinteler wrote:

Thanks for your wellthought response, Finn.

I suppose, I belong to a different group, since it might well be that I'm seriously stamped by the time I served in (our) juridical system: if there's a law, that law must be obeyed.

I francly admit that I was one of those, who liked to find wholes in that law ... making my work easier = foresighted. (I usually said that I was moving in the grey zone of a law, never that I disregarde or 'only' bypassed it.

However, I strongly believe: if a law doesn't work the way policy wants it to work, politicans must change it.

If they can't - e.g. due to constitutional barriers - they either must change the constituion or try to find other ways.

I understand you position Walter, and it certainly has merit.

In most situations I would agree with you.

For instance US immigration laws. I think they need to be changed, but until they are, people who come into this country in violation of these laws are Illegal Aliens, not Undocumented Workers or any other euphemism currently in vogue. Breaking these laws is never a matter of national security and rarely, if ever, a matter of life and death for anyone involved.

Arguably, and the Administration may be incorrect about this, the need to execute this surveillance is of such ultimate importance and requires a heavy degree of secrecy that the country cannot afford to wait for a protracted and public process of changing the law. Lives, literally, are at stake.

If one doesn't believe the Adminstration concerning the stakes involved, then there is no reason not to strictly abide by the laws as written. Considering the classified nature of this program, I can't imagine that we will know, anytime soon, all of the evidence and details required to support or refute the Administration's contention. This why it seems to me that the issues hinges, in part, on whether or not one trusts the Administration.

One might argue that, as with civil disobedience, if the Administration believes it needs to break a law to save American lives, it should do so and then present itself to the judicial process. The problem with this argument is that doing so at the first instance creates a possibility that no future instances will be possible. If the threat is as great as is contended then risking putting a stop to the program before it ever gets started is not worth taking, and so the Administration is forced to attempt to argue that it has not broken any laws and is legally justified, even it doesn't believe this to be the case.

At some point, the system may demand that the Administration's argument be tested. If it is judged to be unfounded and the program to be illegal, then the Adminstration will be held accountable. Up to that point some people's rights will have been illegally infringed upon, but others lives will have been saved. I don't have a problem with this calculus, and if the Adminstration is judged to have not broken any laws, no one's rights will have been illegally infringed upon and others lives will have been saved, and I can't see how anyone would, reasonably, have a problem with this.

Admittedly there are issues involved that reside upon a slippery slope, which make it important to debate them publicly and rationally.

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FreeDuck wrote:

It's not so simple, unfortunatley. The so called wall between intelligence and criminal investigations doesn't exist anymore so it is conceivable that the government could use data gathered this way to eventually prosecute for domestic crimes. My concern is that at some point, all these dots can be connected (and I don't mean the ones the president talks about).

The president can order surveillance without a warrant.
The president can designate a US citizen an enemy combatant
Enemy combatants are not afforded constitutional rights.

I'm trying not to be paranoid, but it appears that in giving up one liberty -- the right to be secure against unreasonable search and seizure -- we might also be giving up our rights to due process and habeas corpus. It's possible that the Supreme Court will sort all this out. I certainly hope so. But in the mean time it seems that it wouldn't be so difficult to grant too much power to the executive during this time of "emergency" that might not be easily taken back. You know what the conservatives say about government programs. It's true also for executive power.

You're right, it is not simple, and I have not suggested that it is.

There is a possiblity that this program can be abused and/or lead to other abuses of power.

Is the risk worth it?

I think it is.

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DrewDad wrote:

Foiling terrorism sounds like a nice goal, but the fact is, in the US, that the chance of dying from terrorism is about equivalent to that of dying from a lightning strike.

Perhaps we should wiretap all of the passing clouds.

So you are of the belief that the risk of another 9/11 is not great enough to justify the wiretapping of some people's overseas cell phone calls without first obtaining a warrant. Fine. I'm not about to ridicule that belief.

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Finn d'Abuzz wrote:

Arguably, and the Administration may be incorrect about this, the need to execute this surveillance is of such ultimate importance and requires a heavy degree of secrecy that the country cannot afford to wait for a protracted and public process of changing the law. Lives, literally, are at stake.

Finn,

The problem is none of us would have known about this program if not for the NYT. Even most of those supposedly briefed on it, didn't understand the scope, or have a means of questioning the decision.

So, if we still didn't know about it, and it has been going on for several years already without us knowing, at what point does it become a public process that we can afford?

When does terrorism get defeated to the point of the government being able to open again to the public?

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Quote:

Arguably, and the Administration may be incorrect about this, the need to execute this surveillance is of such ultimate importance and requires a heavy degree of secrecy that the country cannot afford to wait for a protracted and public process of changing the law. Lives, literally, are at stake.

Unfortunately, lives are at stake in both instances.

There is no telling what information has been garnered by this program. None. You have to place ultimate trust in not only the exec, but the information gatherers themselves, the information coallators, and those recieving the information in many other branches of government, that only information pertaining to terrorism and ONLY calls made to overseas are being tapped; and this just seems to be something of a stretch, Republican or Democrat I think most of us know that people(bueracrats especially) have a difficult time keeping secrets and following rules; and there's no telling the kind of damage that could be done to people's lives here in America w/out rules and privacy from the government.

Jonah Goldberg puts it better than any other conservative:

http://www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg200512210822.asp

Quote:

From what we know, it sounds like the initial decision to be as aggressive as possible in rolling up al Qaeda was completely justified. Recall what it was like in the weeks and months after 9/11, when the death toll was still believed to be much higher than 3,000, anthrax was buzzing through the postal system, and an unknown number of sleeper cells existed on our soil....Speed was of the essence, and the system back then was not speedy.

....There's very little an American president can't do when there's an immediate crisis. But as it became clear this war was going to be a marathon instead of a sprint, Bush should have figured out how to reinsert the rule of law into the process.

The war on terror will never be over. Ever. There are always going to be terrorist groups out there looking to blow us up. So at what point do we step down from a war footing, economically, legally, and politically?

Cycloptichorn

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Uh, great minds... Different verbage.

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It's not like civil liberties versus national security is a new issue. Orwell wrote about this in 1948 (in 1984).

Anyone who thinks the world changed on 9/11 is dreaming.

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I am very much afraid that Cyclo does not keep up with the news.

The policies so loudly proclaimed by the left wing which would weaken our country) because they would take away ( gasp) our God given( no strike that) Essential Rights, are going to be debated in the House and Senate.

I am convinced that politically, and politically is the only important parameter here since the only people who are really concerned about the intrusion of the"evil" thought police are a few pointy heads in Berekley and NYU. The impetus for the outcry is mainly political. Denigrate Bush and we( Democrats) may pick up more seats in November.

If Cyclo and Squnney really think that the American Voter will resonate to the cry-"Our rights have been trampled because the President did not go to a court before he authorized the wiretapping of a foreign national and PERHAPS( I have seen no evidence on this) an AMERICAN CITIZEN, IN ORDER TO KEEP THEM FROM BLOWING UP PART OF AN AMERICAN CITY" they are seriously deluded.

In fact, from strictly a political standpoint, I would WELCOME an all court press by the highly moral Ted Kennedy, Joe Biden and Robert C. Byrd to CALL FOR IMPEACHMENT OF GEORGE W. BUSH.

I am watching the polls closely to see just how the American Voter, not the left leaning professor at Yale, but the American Voter, reacts to such an effort.

I will let Cyclo and Squinn know.

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Imagine all those Republicans, in on the plot as well!

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I am sure that there will be "few" Republicans who will remain in on the plot after they sample the feedback from their constituents over the Xmas holidays.

I still stand by my statement that the polls will show that the Average American is not the pointy headed professor. We shall see and I will watch the polls and report them on this matter.

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I don't think I've ever met a pointy-headed professor.

And by "plot," I was referring to the criticism of the President's actions.

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squinney wrote:

Finn d'Abuzz wrote:
Arguably, and the Administration may be incorrect about this, the need to execute this surveillance is of such ultimate importance and requires a heavy degree of secrecy that the country cannot afford to wait for a protracted and public process of changing the law. Lives, literally, are at stake.

Finn,

The problem is none of us would have known about this program if not for the NYT. Even most of those supposedly briefed on it, didn't understand the scope, or have a means of questioning the decision.

So, if we still didn't know about it, and it has been going on for several years already without us knowing, at what point does it become a public process that we can afford?

When does terrorism get defeated to the point of the government being able to open again to the public?

Good question.

I only know that it has yet to be defeated as evidence by the attacks in the UK and Jordan.

The Constitution recognizes that the powers of the Executive branch expand from peace time to time of war.

If like Drewdad, one believes that the threat of international terrorism is miniscule, then it follows that there really is no state of war and that the power of the executive branch need not be expanded.

It would be a mistake to allow the executive branch expanded powers beyond the state of peril. It would be a mistake (arguably larger) to cut back the powers of the executive branch during a state of peril.

All things being equal, it comes down to which, in your perception, is the greater risk: Attacks by terrorists or abuse by the executive branch?

If you argue that the latter is the greater risk then you have some responsibility for future terrorist attacks, just as I arguing that the former is the greater risk have some responsibility for associated abuses of executive power.

It's risk management, and with risk management there does not come immunity from the consequences of choices made.

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DrewDad wrote:

It's not like civil liberties versus national security is a new issue. Orwell wrote about this in 1948 (in 1984).

Anyone who thinks the world changed on 9/11 is dreaming.

Are they?

Consider the impact 9/11 has had on US domestic and foreign policy and the impact that US policy has on the rest of the world and then tell us again that if we believe 9/11 has changed the world, that we are dreaming.

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America... Spying on Americans

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