Judge Rules NSA Wiretapping Unconstitutional 781
strredwolf writes "CNN is reporting that NSA's warrantless wiretapping program has been ruled unconstitutional. This is the ACLU lawsuit on behalf of journalists, scholars, and lawyers. From the article: "U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit became the first judge to strike down the National Security Agency's program, which she says violates the rights to free speech and privacy.""
Trust us! We're the government! (Score:5, Insightful)
Basically what this argument boils down to: We can't tell you why we're justified, but trust us, we are. This, despite the fact that 50% of the US and a good portion of the rest of the world does not trust the current US government.
Of course, there's a well-established method of establishing that a search/wiretap/etc. is justified: it's called a warrant. In fact, for the past several decades, we've had a program in place that makes getting a warrant for wiretapping quite easy. You can get a FISA warrant quickly, confidentially, and even retroactively.
Yes, retroactively. You can spot a suspect, set up an emergency wiretap, then a day later you can walk into the secret court and tell the judge why it was necessary to set up the wiretap. And you'll get the warrant. It's no hardship, unless you have reason to believe a judge wouldn't grant you the warrant.
This whole thing could have been resolved months ago if the administration were willing to just say, "Oh, yeah, you're right, we should be getting warrants for this sort of thing. We'll start doing so immediately." End of controversy, they can still listen in on suspects, it's still done without revealing state secrets. Arguing that they need the ability to spy on people without warrants makes them look awfully suspicious.
P.S. to people who do trust the current administration: just consider that someone you don't like will eventually be in charge. Maybe another Republican, maybe a Democrat, maybe the balance of power will realign and we'll be looking at Republicans vs. Greens or something for the next few decades. However it works out, someone you disagree with will be in the Oval Office at some point. Would you want them to have the powers that this administration has been insisting on?
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Re:Trust us! We're the government! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Trust us! We're the government! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Trust us! We're the government! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Trust us! We're the government! (Score:5, Insightful)
That's already the case. Pretty much everyone who has rallied behind Bush and his administration for the advances of executive power that he's pushed for criticized Clinton for the same attempts. They granted the line item veto, only to have Clinton use it once and have it taken away. Bush has used signing statements to accomplish the same thing. Clinton's ties to industry were scrutinized; Bush's are clear, yet it's OK because it shows he supposedly knows what's going on.
Directly related to FISA and the wiretapping, Clinton's administration conducted a few physical searches w/o warrants, which was legal at the time. When it was discovered, and a law was passed saying that a warrant was needed... they stopped.
It's just a case of "When our guys do it, it's OK, but if your guys do it it's not" syndrome. What they really want to have happen is have a law that only takes effect when members of a certain party are elected. So there would be a "Republican Only" law that only works when the president's party is Republican. And so on.
Re:Trust us! We're the government! (Score:5, Insightful)
It's an inevitable consequence of a populace that understands football better than politics. The idea that the parties are supposed to work together to support society is not a familiar concept. They think it's about two teams, one of which must be the winning side and one of which must be the losing side. They've picked a side, not realising that politics is not a zero-sum game.
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<Joe Blow>What are these 'sums' of which you speak?</Joe Blow>
Scary! (Score:4, Funny)
And that, my fellow slashdotters, is a VERY scary thought. Most US citizens think that football is a game played using your hands.
;p
Re:Trust us! We're the government! (Score:5, Insightful)
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This wiretap program seems to be spying on everybody. There's no way the secret courts can handle that kind of paperwork.
Re:Trust us! We're the government! (Score:4, Insightful)
No, no, no. You just don't get it. The point of almost everything this White House has done is to ensure a perpetual Republican majority and infinite Republican control of the three branches. Everyone's arguing over whether they're committing a foul, while they're changing the rules of the game.
And that's why the Republic is in trouble.
Re:Trust us! We're the government! (Score:5, Informative)
The Federal Judge has ordered NSA to stop wiretapping international calls that the Government says targets suspected al qaeda members.
The one you are thinking about (a much broader domestic wiretapping) was recently dismissed [slashdot.org]. It was also filed by the ACLU, hence the confusion.
While the decision may be a good news for privacy advocates, it is certain that the Government is likely to appeal Judge Taylor's decision.
I would argue that of the three known warrantless data collection programs, the one targeting international calls has the least privacy impact and the most potential to garner actionable intelligence and protect the American public, so it may be unfortunate that this is the one ordered stopped, while the other two are allowed to continue.
Re:Trust us! We're the government! (Score:5, Insightful)
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However, I've always disagreed with this argument. I use the Mafia example. Let's say the government DOES get a grant to tap a criminal's phone line. Then YOU call him... now YOUR call is being tapped because of who you called. That's the way it works. Otherwise the gov
Re:Trust us! We're the government! (Score:5, Informative)
There is hope.
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Re:Trust us! We're the government! (Score:5, Informative)
From the WashingtonPost article:
Do officials actually do the torture, or do they give commands? Ahh.. Furthermore, if a president ordered such an act, wouldn't this amendment absolve him?
From the article I originally posted, the lawyer that leaked this information to the press had this to say about the amendment he helped to draft:
Re:Trust us! We're the government! (Score:5, Insightful)
The phrase "domestic wiretap" is exactly what they were doing here.
Re:Trust us! We're the government! (Score:5, Informative)
"The government admitted to tapping all [my emphasis] phone calls that had an end-point in any foreign country."
Huh? Where do you get this? Even the judge's opinion striking down the program had this to say:
It is undisputed that Defendants have publicly admitted to the following: (1) the TSP exists; (2) it operates without warrants; (3) it targets communications where one party to the communication is outside the United States, and the government has a reasonable basis to conclude that one party to the communication is a member of al Qaeda, affiliated with al Qaeda, or a member of an organization affiliated with al Qaeda, or working in support of al Qaeda.
- Alaska Jack
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What I'm concerned a bit about is that no one with credibility is saying what the government is doing.
Not only that but I'm sympathize with the argument that the government needs to be able to make some information classified. To trot out a tired old example I wouldn't want the details of the Manhattan project to get out, I wouldn't want the USSR to know where our ballistic subs were (are,) and I don't think that we necessarilly have the right to know exactly whom the CIA is getting informati
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The EFF's domestic case is *ongoing* (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Trust us! We're the government! (Score:5, Insightful)
Second, in the current case, the privacy issue is entirely secondary. The real concern is: President Bush knowingly broke the law. End of story. (The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act describes what steps the government needs to take to wiretap the phones of foreign agents. Those steps include a warrant by the special FISA court. The Administration did not seek those warrants on a large number of wiretaps. FISA also specifies that it is the only law covering such surveillance.) Caught at breaking the law -- a law, by the way, he had signaled his complete satisfaction with, and which, if he had asked, he could easily have had amended -- he brazenly declared his intention to go on breaking the law.
A few years back, a hyperventilating minority of the political leaders in this country screamed bloody murder and tried to oust a President for perjuring himself in a civil suit concerning a matter from long before his Presidency. It was, they told us, a matter of high principle: The President must obey the law. He must respect the judicial process. He must not be an oathbreaker, since he swears an oath to uphold the Consititution and faithfully execute the laws of the land.
Now, that group of leaders is shockingly silent -- indeed, worse, vocal in their defense -- when their party's President knowingly and intentionally violated an actual law and thus knowingly violates his oath of office. Even for Washington, the hypocrisy here is rank.
Re:Trust us! We're the government! (Score:5, Funny)
You:"Hi NSA we are talking about bombs!" (smile)
NSA:"Actually you were dicussing your blog, get a thesaurus."
You:
NSA:"The TP is in the hall closet"
Sound of phone dropping and wet footsteps running away
Re:Reminds me of an old Russian joke (Score:5, Funny)
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If they'd just done it by the rules, it would have remained both confidential and legal. The problem is that this Administration thinks it can make its own laws. You want to blame someone, blame them.
Re:Trust us! We're the government! (Score:5, Informative)
And yet, you say it's false without presenting any evidence of your own (or perhaps obtaining it from the same region as the GP). I'm not aware of a poll that asks a question like, "Do you trust the current administration?" I think it would be a poor question, because it's too vague to be meaningful. Most of the time, we'd trust people so far in a certain situation; trust is not a binary issue. For example, I trust Bush not to intentionally bring down the USA, but I don't trust him to make accurate statements about intelligence. There are some things we can say, however. We can say that according to polls most people disapprove of the overall job that Bush is doing (see almost any recent presidential approval rating poll), and we can say they're almost evenly split on the question of whether warrentless wiretaps are ok (see, for example, this Newsweek poll [msn.com]). Most of the polls I've seen, but not all, show a slight majority for the opinion that these searches are a bad thing. Perhaps if you're going to attack people for a lack of facts, you should at least try to offer some to support your own claims.
Re:Trust us! We're the government! (Score:5, Insightful)
Most people in the United States supported slavery too.
The public at large cannot always be trusted to support the moral or ethical side of an issue, nor can they be trusted to maintain logic or consistency in their beliefs. I think it was Ben Franklin that said (paraphrasing now), "Being in the majority means that most people agree with you; it does not mean that you are right."
That's why we have a Constitution and Bill of Rights, which is intended to be a semi-permanent document that does not change with the "whims of the people". It *can* be changed, and in fact it was changed to outlaw slavery once and for all, but it is intentionally difficult to do. And if the Constitution says that this program is against the law of the land, then that's that. Public support is irrelevant.
What I was a bit surprised to read in this ruling was that the judge said the President of the United States had willfully and knowingly broken the Fourth Amendment. That's an impeachable offense; in fact, pretty much the worst kind of impeachable offense. Now, there are a lot of things that people on the other side of the aisle have said Bush could be impeached for, but this is the first time that I know of that we have a legal ruling by a federal judge that documents an actual offense for which the President could be held legally accountable. This federal judge has basically labeled the President a high criminal in a legally binding decision.
The question is, will anything be done about it? I guess we'll know in November. As we've seen, politics matters a lot more than ethics or legality to the current congress.
Actually... (Score:5, Interesting)
The congress unfortunately is utterly corrupt and has failed for 6 years to meet it's oversight responsibilities. There is zero chance that the current congress will impeach. Vote and pray for the Democrats in 2006. Then there will be a small but real chance that the Criminal in Chief will be held accountable for his may crimes.
Re:Trust us! We're the government! (Score:5, Insightful)
*slaps knee* Damn dude, that's a good one! HAR HAR HAR!
What a limited scope of thought you appear to hold, for one accusing others of lacking in the thinking department no less. Somewhere between fascinating and horrifying.
Your entire statement falls on its face by dwelling in naive radio-talk-show style catchphrasing, and the oversimplifications that come with it.
>One of Clinton's staff members, a liberal, is embarassed by liberals like these on slashdot.
And that should matters to who, how?
>There is a war on to fight terrorism
There is a war on to put into action the pipe dreams of the PNAC and other neocon thinktanks, an attempt to impose their own worldview and vision of "democracy" upon foreign nations in particular areas of the world for both idealogical and strategic purposes.
They are also intent on increasing the powers of the executive above the other branches of our government, and imposing limitations on individual liberty resembling policies one would expect to find in a police state rather than our own. All in direct opposition to the US constitution, and in violation of the very priciples they feign to cherish and protect. All in the pursuit of creating and keeping stronger centralized government power, to better reach their aims.
Actions taken in pursuit of these goals have been conducted under the auspices of "fighting terrorism", which recieves little more than lip service, as far as effective strategies for identifying and containing real threats are concerned.
They are crucifying the very core of conservative ideals, in the name of empire building for their own idealogical and personal gains. They attempt to appeal to conservatives by gutting/ruining government entities they themselves find no use for (typically those with potential for common good, even given their faults) while they are busy building the ugly Orwellian machine behind the curtain. The very "big government" traditional conservatives despise the most.
Furthermore, this "war" is being conducted at the top levels with such incompetence as to be a complete embarrassment, and falling far short of the leadership our troops and other persons (the ones on the ground actually doing the finding, fighting, and dying) deserve. (I can't believe there was even talk about voluntarily opening another front. The idiocy of that kind of move is astounding.)
>hence people on all sides dying. Liberals would like to runa away from it and pay off the terrorists
Running away from what? From hunting Bin Laden to go have ourselves a grudge match with a fucking global has-been like Saddam?
>incorrectly thinking they will be left alone. Don't believe me, look into the real history of Rome and Greece. It didn't work then and it will not work now.
You appear to be referring to Danegeld style policies. You're right... they don't work. And you're stupid to think that is what anyone has in mind, or bears any resemblance to any policies anyone is suggesting.
>While I support the war on terror
Great... as currently conducted , you must support our brothers/sisters being shortchanged in force levels, equipment, and workable strategy, to be shot at and often killed for some bullshit diversion instead of what they should be doing.
>The world's enemy is being fought by those who have fought for and believe in freedom. The rest of the world is too afraid to fight these people.
And you're the fucking bastard who would throw away the very rights and freedoms that they believe in and fight for, the ones that make our country what it is supposed to be, because you're a scared little pussy... worried to death that "the bad guys are gonna get me and mine".
How about honoring their sacrifice with a little balls of
Re:Trust us! We're the government! (Score:5, Informative)
The NY Times [nytimes.com] says, "The poll found that 53 percent of Americans approved of Mr. Bush's authorizing eavesdropping without prior court approval 'in order to reduce the threat of terrorism.'"
The CS Monitor [csmonitor.com] (reporting on a Zogby poll) says, "Nearly half of likely voters, 49 percent, say Bush has the constitutional powers to approve such a plan".
I don't have more recent figures. The President's popularity is roughly the same now that it was then, though it had risen a bit for a while in the meantime.
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Still can't get me head 'round that one...
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Even better! (Score:5, Interesting)
Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could turn back the clock 10 years and have our greatest concern about the President be, quite legitimately, that he once lied in a deposition for a civil case?
The difference between Bill Clinton and George Bush is Bill Clinton thought he had to break the law to cover his ass. George Bush doesn't think the law applies to him in the first place.
Of course... (Score:5, Insightful)
In COBN3T AM3PNKA (Score:3, Funny)
Finally. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Finally. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Finally. (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it just is a dangerous practice to be able to claim that national security (or anything else whatsoever) trumps the Constitution. Full Stop. No qualifying statements are required.
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That's not true; Bush thinks he is above the law. [boston.com] And even if he did really think he was within his rights, he'd still be wrong.
Besides, your statement doesn't contradict what I said anyway, because I was speaking in general terms rather than specifically about the Bush Administration.
Re:Finally. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is just a stop on the way to the supreme court. Don't be counting any chickens of liberty as yet. And remember: This is the supreme court that ruled that growth, distribution and use of pot within the borders of California was "interstate commerce", and it's not a lot different from the supreme court that ruled that retroactive registration of sexual and violent offenders wasn't ex post facto punishment, either.
Don't get me wrong -- I applaud the ruling. But the fact of the matter is that for matters of state and country, things typically progress to the supreme court, and lower court rulings mean very little in the long run.
Re:Finally. (Score:5, Insightful)
Wickard v. Filburn got to the Supreme Court, and in 1942, the justices unanimously ruled against the farmer. The government claimed that if Mr. Filburn grew wheat for his own use, he would not be buying it -- and that affected interstate commerce. It also argued that if the price of wheat rose, which is what the government wanted, Mr. Filburn might be tempted to sell his surplus wheat in the interstate market, thwarting the government's objective. The Supreme Court bought it. http://www.fff.org/freedom/0895g.asp [fff.org]
*Jaw drops* (Score:5, Insightful)
However, how long will it take before Judge Taylor becomes just another of then "activist" judges?
Bravo, Judge Taylor, Bravo.
Re:*Jaw drops* (Score:5, Insightful)
If this case goes before the Supreme Court, I can almost guarantee that the SCOTUS will also declare it unconstitutional. The Administration is directly marginalizing the oversight powers of the very branch of the government which these people represent. It won't be an activist judge thing.
And FYI, I voted for this guy.
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And, buried way down here in the comments where the
See, here's the thing. The program almost certainly isn't unconstitutional. Yes, the judge has ruled it so, but she produced almost literally no analysis to support that conclusion. She deals with the administration's 4th amendment exceptions arguments by -- almost completely ignoring them. The opinion is, after one da
Re:*Jaw drops* (Score:4, Insightful)
See, the thing is that the "exceptions" to the 4th amendment have basically been, "trust me, we think this is important stuff".
The 4th Amendment protects citizens from searches unless they have either given permission for the search to occur, (oath or affirmation), or a probable cause has been found. The thing is that the Constitution requires a probable cause for searches without consent, and without a warrant, there is little way to show probable cause before the search.
I'm Libertarian... I'm not some teenage Liberal who's been brainwashed by the school system into believing that Republicans are the fourth sign of the apocolypse. But I completely disagree with the administration on this issue. A big part of Libertarianism is being secure in your person, effects and belongings, and this particular policy undermines that right.
So What? (Score:5, Interesting)
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No enforcement -- just like all the other laws he's broken, Bush gets a free pass.
But you... YOU had better weat that seatbelt, Mr. smart-ass.
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Now for the next question: What if the president goes on a criminal rampage out of sight? What if he wipes his ass with the constitution? What if he destroys the few remaining shreds of democracy left in the current system? Would he get away without punishment? I'll
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Look, I think Bush is a huge jerk and an incompetent leader, but I do expect that we will obey a court decision. His administration has become extremely "creative" in their interpretation of the law, I admit
The most important question (Score:5, Interesting)
-Sj53
Re:The most important question (Score:4, Informative)
Oldthinkers unbellyfeel AmSoc!
Or to phrase in in Oldspeak: Your question is moot -- when one starts from the principle that one does not need a warrant, it logically follows that one does not arrest, nor does one prosecute, because there is no case to be brought before any court, and no verdict need be overturned, because no verdict need ever be handed down.
In Newspeak: Poster oldthinker, unbellyfeel Amsoc. Refs unwords "arrest" "prosecute" "constitution" "case", "verdict". Assign oldthinker MiniLuv reference subgroups educamp, joycamp.
Re:The most important question (Score:4, Insightful)
Ok...This is what happens next (Score:5, Funny)
Land of the free, eh?
Congratulations! (Score:5, Funny)
Welcome back, you guys.
Signed,
The Free World
Re:Congratulations! (Score:5, Insightful)
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-Eric
State secrets? (Score:5, Insightful)
"The government argued that the program is well within the president's authority, but said proving that would require revealing state secrets."
What about the President's authority is secret? Is there some part of the constitution that you have to be TS/SCI to read? If the law exists that allows the President such powers, then let's take a look at it. I think the "state secrets" trump is going to fail them this time. It's not about the purpose for what's being done, but the authority to do so, and this judge has (thank goodness) made a sensible call that the President does not have the power to authorize this invasion of privacy, even to combat terrorism or while thinking of the childern.
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This ethical relativism talking point doesn't stand up to scrutiny. The specific searches that Clinton ordered were legal at the time he ordered them [mediamatters.org], while, as judge's ruling described in TFA reaffirms, the ones Bush ordered were illegal. Further, even at the time Clinton or
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cue the obvious comments (Score:5, Insightful)
I for one... (Score:4, Funny)
You can bet on this..... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah yeah people have been talking about how f*cked the government has become but the nice thing about the United States is that it DOES eventually correct itself and justice usually comes.
The absolute and correct interpretation of how disastrous this presidency has been is now beginning. Worst administration ever and that has nothing to do with Republican or Democrat. It just IS.
Re:You can bet on this..... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'll believe that when Bush gets impeached and removed from office. His crimes are multiple orders of magnitude bigger than Nixon's, and unlike Nixon, Bush doesn't even have the decency to resign!
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Andrew Jackson will return! (Score:5, Insightful)
The lesson learned: judges can strike down anything, but unless it's enforced, the decision is moot. Will the NSA stop? No. Will the government ensure they stop? No. What can anyone do? Nothing.
Divisive Issues (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Divisive Issues (Score:5, Insightful)
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It seems that one of the goals of the public school system is to teach the kids to think that government control, power, and regulation are good things, and will protect you from the bad guys.
Re:Divisive Issues (Score:5, Insightful)
You're missing the point. They're not interested in protecting you from terrorists at all, they're interested in chipping away the Bill of Rights. Stopping terrorism is just a pretext for a power grab.
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You call in to complain about wiretapping, and suddenly you're having to defend every judicial decision ever passed down. And so you do, because you are The Loyal Opposition. And then you lose, because you tried to hold up the straw man.
PS you should'
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Much later on when someone is suddenly suspected of being a terrorist, they have at their fingertips mountains of illegally gathered backdated infomation to sift through to see what you've been up to.
See, that's where their argument really crumbles. Its illegal to wiretap, no matter when you decide to eventually get around to listen to that tap. Their argument is not ingenious at all, its rather weak.
We are not out of the woods yet (Score:5, Informative)
Remember the Total Information Awareness project, proposed by Admiral Poindexter, shortly after 9/11? It was to be a gigantic database of all electronic information -- the complete, ongoing electronic record of every US citizen. Of course, because of public outcry, the project was defunded. However, the project has simply been broken apart and pursued. Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] says "An unknown number of TIA's functions have been merged under the codename "Topsail".
We don't know the full story, yet we are being given some very clear, bright red flags. Why does the government need to keep track of every single citizen?
Re:We are not out of the woods yet (Score:5, Insightful)
Power outage (Score:5, Funny)
The Department of Energy has urged power consumers to attempt to cut back on their energy usage until new generators can be installed on the Republican Spin machine, which provides nearly as much spin as the Founding Fathers' graves.
I wonder if ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Which Congressman? (Score:5, Interesting)
Note: Conyers backed down [washingtonpost.com] this past May.
At least someone is putting up a fight (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the sad part of this story is that the ALCU are the ones standing up for our rights. Where is the outrage? The problem is Americans are too complacent in their SUV and Mc-Mansion lives to give a F***.
I remember a poll a while back that stated 50% of people surveyed are willing to give up their rights if they thought it would help the war on terror. I am sure that's not what our forefathers had in mind.
Most people just take their freedoms for granted and assume they will always be there. I can imagine the look on their faces when the police show up to randomly search their homes, and they state "Don't you need a warrant for this?" and the police reply "Nope. Not any more!"
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They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. ~Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759
Wait till Jr. pulls an Andrew Jackson (Score:3, Interesting)
Quotes from the decision (Score:5, Informative)
The actual decision by the court [cnn.net] is worth reading. Some quotes:
IT IS SO ORDERED.
ANNA DIGGS TAYLOR
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE"
Ready to modded 'Troll' again... (Score:4, Funny)
... but I will not let my fear of losing karma stifle my right to free expression.
I for one believe this particular program is good, necessary, and in line with the Constitution, so it's not a matter of "security vs. freedom" for me. This ruling is just the start of a legal battle that will likely go to the Supreme Court.
I for one do not want to see the program go. We have foiled terroist attacks and cells within the US for 5 years now. How much is due to things like this NSA program, I don't know.
Not a troll, just wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately, you are simply wrong. The NSA is not doing anything that it couldn't do legally. All that is required is getting a FISA judge to issue a warrant. Since the institution of the FISA court in 1979, the government has requested more than 10,000 warrants. It has been denied four times.
But wait! Today's terrorist moves fast. Maybe there isn't time to speak to a judge! Bzzzt. But thanks for playing. The FISA judges hold court in the oddest of places -- such as the chief judge's living room at 3 AM -- so that they can be responsive and quick. And even then, the law (as amended) allows the government to conduct an emergency wiretap so long as it gets a (retroactive) warrant within 72 hours. So no nasty terrorist plots can slip through waiting on that burdensome due process.
Should the government be allowed to wiretap suspected terrorists? Of course. Not a single major player has ever said otherwise. But that's the question the Bush people want you to focus on, so that you don't notice the real question: Should the President of the United States be bound by the Constitution and the laws passed under it? And this Administration's clear, stark answer is: NO. The President should be entirely unconstrained.
That is why this Administration is the greatest threat to the Republic since the Civil War.
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So you're not okay with being intimidated into silence, but you are okay with terrorists intimidating us all into giving up our privacy and liberty?
People who speak out against the NSA's illegal domestic spying program aren't pro-terrorism. They are people who cherish freedom and the rule of law that guarantees that freedom. I understand that for you personally, there is no freedom/security trade off, probably because you couldn't care less if t
As Andrew Jackson put it... (Score:3, Insightful)
And there is still an appeal possible. Anyone want to bet which way a 5-4 supreme court split would go? And which side Alito would vote on?
"...the rights to free speech and privacy." (Score:4, Interesting)
Searching the consitution... [usconstitution.net]
Free Speech - Check.
Privacy... searching... hmmm.
<tinfoil_hat> Just wait - when a supreme court rules you don't have privacy, what other famous cases based on privacy will fall? </tinfoil_hat>
BTW - here is a reasoned argument on why there is such a right [harrybrowne.org].
Re:"...the rights to free speech and privacy." (Score:4, Informative)
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
The bill of rights is not an exhaustive list- it's just a of rights which the founders thought were worth mentioning specifically. You have a right to privacy by default- at least, a right that the federal government may not abridge.
Give me liberty... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm glad this isn't my job.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Constraint: Do this without turning our society into something not worth defending.
I'm not sure how you do this. It's an ugly problem with a delicate balance. I'd argue that circumventing process when such process is sufficiently lenient to get the job done for domestic-only wiretapping is inexcusable. I'd also argue that holding people without charges is one of the reasons we were in such a hurry to dump colonial rule.
Can we save America while keeping it a place worth saving? (assuming you beleive it still is, which is up for debate in certain circles..)
In our society worth saving, we allegedly support religious freedom and tolernace. We try to avoid things like "racial profiling" or juding any individual based on a group affiliation. And we know the logical / mathematical rules about correlation vs. causation, and necessary vs sufficient and that the balance of favor must be given to assuming innocence.
At the same time, it seems very enticing to say things like "let's target brown-skinned muslims trying to board aircraft for extra security". It is undeniable that the set of "terrorists" is almost entirely contained in the intersection of "dark skinned" and "muslim". Even so, if we build a society that lets us act on that info and that info alone, tomorrow someone will decide that the set "serial killers" will fit into the sets "white" and "male".
I do beleive "we" have a real enemy - and that enemy is Islamofacism. I don't think there is any room in this country for people that want Sharia Law or want to change the laws of the US to fit their religion (that applies to Christians too - of which I count myself a member, and i'd be willing to concede that too many judeo-christian influences have been grandfathered into modern America ) - our law attempts to treat all as equals and _allegedly_ puts no religion over any other. If you don't want to play that way - fine, there are other countries for you.
However, the nature of this "enemy" and the antics of our government are setting off too many alarms in my head about how governments manipulate with fear for their own purposes. I don't want to be protected by a government that has so much power to eavesdrop and detain the people I don't like today that they can just as easily do it to me tomorrow when someone else decides they don't like me. Even if you beleive that the govt is trying to act benignly (I think they generally are - i think they beleive they're doing the right thing), the problem is building the machine that gives them this much power to begin with. even if they are acting in our best interests, the next crop of people or the set after them wont be, and by then it will be too late.
What the founding fathers understood is that to limit government tyrany, you limited government, not who could participate.
Correct, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Correct, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Who cares (aside from partisan dumbasses (and everyone who is partisan is a dumbass))? Government abuse of power always sucks, no matter what ideology the perpetrators subscribe to.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
You're absolutely right. Obviously, we should punish Clinton. No need to question the continued use of those powers, or to question their constitutionality, or even, god forbid, try to get them repealed. We just need to punish Clinton.
Once we do that, things will be different. The world will magically become a better place. Warrantless wiretaps would be unecessary because theft,
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20051222-122610
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That depends on whether the judges end up leaning more toward political conservatism or judicial conservatism. From a strict constructionist point of view, one would expect them to agree with the premise that a wiretapping program requires due process of law. (Of course, there may be some argument on whether the program qualifies as due process.)
Supreme Co
Re:Judge Anna Diggs Taylor - A Known Liberal (Score:5, Insightful)
That's sure a well thought out counterpoint you've got there. But why bother with facts when they don't support your side, eh?
They make their own laws on the fly
Apparently so does the exec branch.
How are we going to prevent terrorist attacks if our own government says we can't listen in on their conversations?
Oh for Chrissake. Who has a problem with wiretapping terrorists?! I have never heard anyone say they are against wiretapping terrorists. Not one.
What I have heard is that wiretapping should done within applicable laws. Even congressional leadership (from both parties) has said that. Why is this talking point, that some people are against wiretapping, so stuck in your pea-sized red brain?!
Liberals are too concerned about big brother
As is the Republican Congress who held hearings about this exact issue...
to realized that there terrorists out there laughing it up as they get ready to explode at a town near you.
Oh? I thought we were in Iraq, "fighting them over there so we didn't have to fight them here." Was that another lie then?