America... Spying on Americans

Debra:

Well written and great format! Perhaps you could give our Dear Morkat some basic lessons in formatting and style, as well as writing. He needs some real work on his presentation as well as content!!

Anon

parados wrote:

Tico,

If a prosecutor or a govt official tells a court they have some facts and those facts turn out to not exist, what would be the normal response of a court?

What would be the response if the court found out that the govt official acted as if those facts existed knowing full well they didn't have them?

There is a grey area there but if a govt official acts on a supposed fact, tells the court that fact exists and then refuses to show any evidence to the court I think there is little doubt that the court would consider it to be a lie on the part of the govt official.

No court is going to accept an argument that others must prove that the official lied. The burden of proof is with the govt. Unless that official can show they acted with a reasonable belief that what they were doing was legal they are going to face serious penalties.

Your argument is twisted like a pretzel.

First of all a Court does not regard the Prosecutor or the Defense Counsel as having the same status in a legal proceeding as a defendant or a witness. The former are officers of the Court and the latter are not.

If you're question is going to have relevance, it needs to focused on the hypothetical "government official" as either a defendant or a witness. In any realistic application of your hypothetical to the issues in question, George Bush can only be conceived of as either a defendant (which I'm sure is where you are leading) or a witness, and even here there are important differences.

But any legitimate reasons are not evident, and the government
has not offered explanation. Absent explanation, our
authorization of Padilla's transfer under the circumstances
described and while the case is awaiting imminent consideration
by the Supreme Court would serve only to compound the appearance
-10-
to which the government's actions, even if wholly legitimate,
have inescapably given rise.

And these
impressions have been left, we fear, at what may ultimately prove
to be substantial cost to the government's credibility before the
courts, to whom it will one day need to argue again in support of
a principle of assertedly like importance and necessity to the
one that it seems to abandon today.

The judges could, depending on their level of satisfaction with the answers, demand that the Justice Department produce proof that previous wiretaps were not tainted, according to government officials knowledgeable about the FISA court. Warrants obtained through secret surveillance could be thrown into question. One judge, speaking on the condition of anonymity, also said members could suggest disbanding the court in light of the president's suggestion that he has the power to bypass the court.

The FISA law does include emergency provisions that allow warrantless eavesdropping for up to 72 hours if the attorney general certifies there is no other way to get the information.

Still, Bush and his advisers have said they need to operate outside the FISA system in order to move quickly against suspected terrorists.

Bush has made the distinction between detecting threats and plots and monitoring likely, known targets, as FISA would allow.

Bush administration officials believe it is not possible, in a large-scale eavesdropping effort, to provide the kind of evidence the court requires to approve a warrant. Sources knowledgeable about the program said there is no way to secure a FISA warrant when the goal is to listen in on a vast array of communications in the hopes of finding something that sounds suspicious. Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales said the White House had tried but failed to find a way.

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales said the White House had tried but failed to find a way.

One government official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the administration complained bitterly that the FISA process demanded too much: to name a target and give a reason to spy on it.

"For FISA, they had to put down a written justification for the wiretap," said the official. "They couldn't dream one up."

"There is a difference between detecting, so we can prevent, and monitoring. And it's important to note the distinction between the two," Bush said Monday. But he added: "If there is a need based upon evidence, we will take that evidence to a court in order to be able to monitor calls within the United States."

By all means, woiyo, let's hand over all of our freedoms, because refusing to do so means we don't care about security.

Well, of course there's a difference between monitoring and detecting.

Monitoring is what you do day-to-day.

Detecting is what you do when you get a positive hit.

Duh.

DrewDad wrote:

By all means, woiyo, let's hand over all of our freedoms, because refusing to do so means we don't care about security.

ALL our fredoms???

ALL??

Your exagerations are as bad as the Extreme Rights Exagerations.

I take neither side seriously.

Yes, because everyone knows that monitoring overseas communications of people with known terrorist connections is the same as giving up all our freedoms...

Sources knowledgeable about the program said there is no way to secure a FISA warrant when the goal is to listen in on a vast array of communications in the hopes of finding something that sounds suspicious.

McG is happy that he has a big brother who wants to protect him from all of the world's nasties.

December 26, 2005 -- Colin Powell says Bush's use of NSA to conduct warrantless wiretaps acceptable. On December 25, former Secretary of State Colin Powell told ABC News This Week that the Bush administration's use of NSA to spy on U.S. citizens without a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court warrant was legitimate. However, Powell, himself, was the target of such eavesdropping by NSA. While he was Powell's deputy undersecretary for international arms control, unconfirmed US ambassador to the UN John Bolton, on the orders of Dick Cheney, instructed NSA to conduct domestic eavesdropping on phone calls between Powell and New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson. Of primary interest to Bolton and Cheney was Powell's green light to Richardson to conduct diplomatic back channel nuclear talks with North Korea's UN ambassador in New York.

From WMR, May 15, 2005: "Intelligence community insiders claim that a number of State Department and other government officials may have been subject to NSA "training" surveillance and that transcripts between them and foreign officials likely ended up in the possession of Bolton and his neo-conservative political allies, including such members of Vice President Dick Cheney's staff as David Wurmser (a former assistant to Bolton at State), John Hannah, and Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

Possible affected individuals include: . . . New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and his telephone conversations with Secretary of State Powell and North Korea's deputy UN ambassador Han Song Ryol . . ."

This editor earlier reported this surveillance on Online Journal on May 5, 2005: "NSA conducted telephone surveillance of phone calls between Secretary of State Colin Powell and New Mexico Democratic Governor and former ambassador to the UN Bill Richardson concerning a visit by a North Korean UN delegation to New Mexico to meet with the governor in an attempt to reinstate direct negotiations with the U.S. government over nuclear issues." and on Online Journal, April 25, 2005.

On April 26, 2005 at Noon EDT, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson was being interviewed on Fox News Channel about the nomination of John Bolton. As he was about to comment on the above article, the satellite signal to Santa Fe suddenly went dead and the Fox News host quickly and with apparent foreknowledge blamed the dark screen on a lost satellite signal.



Gov. Bill Richardson's phone conversations with Colin Powell: What was Bush's probable cause to conclude they were discussing committing acts of terrorism?

""Of course it should continue," he said. "And nobody is suggesting that the president shouldn't do this." ""

Excpet of course, the Bushwackers who are not concerned wth security or objective analysis.

McGentrix wrote:

Yes, because everyone knows that monitoring overseas communications of people with known terrorist connections is the same as giving up all our freedoms...

From the WP Article I posted above:

Quote:

Sources knowledgeable about the program said there is no way to secure a FISA warrant when the goal is to listen in on a vast array of communications in the hopes of finding something that sounds suspicious.

What part of that indicates "monitoring overseas communications of people with known terrorist connections"??? Especially when Bush himself said they weren't "monitoring?"

But Judge Malcolm Howard of eastern North Carolina said he tends to think the terrorist threat to the United States is so grave that the president should use every tool available and every ounce of executive power to combat it.

"I am not overly concerned" about the surveillance program, he said, but "I would welcome hearing more specifics."