Federal Prosecutors, In a Policy Shift, Cite Warrantless Wiretaps As Evidence 321
schwit1 sends this quote from the NY Times "The Justice Department for the first time has notified a criminal defendant that evidence being used against him came from a warrantless wiretap, a move that is expected to set up a Supreme Court test of whether such eavesdropping is constitutional. The government's notice allows the defendant's lawyer to ask a court to suppress the evidence by arguing that it derived from unconstitutional surveillance, setting in motion judicial review of the eavesdropping. ... The practice contradicted what [Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr.] had told the Supreme Court last year in a case challenging the law, the FISA Amendments Act of 2008. Legalizing a form of the Bush administration’s program of warrantless surveillance, the law authorized the government to wiretap Americans’ e-mails and phone calls without an individual court order and on domestic soil so long as the surveillance is “targeted” at a foreigner abroad. A group of plaintiffs led by Amnesty International had challenged the law as unconstitutional. But Mr. Verrilli last year urged the Supreme Court to dismiss the case because those plaintiffs could not prove that they had been wiretapped. In making that argument, he said a defendant who faced evidence derived from the law would have proper legal standing and would be notified, so dismissing the lawsuit by Amnesty International would not close the door to judicial review of the 2008 law. The court accepted that logic, voting 5-to-4 to dismiss the case."
Can someone remind me? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Can someone remind me? (Score:4, Interesting)
How are we, the U.S., different from East Germany?
East Germany had a bigger, richer, and democratic neighbour. That was in the end enough motivation to overthrow the government. The USA has Canada and Mexico. Good luck.
Re:Let's be clear. (Score:3, Interesting)
No doubt. The problem is the long settled law invariably deals with (a) border searches or (b) searching of individuals outside the US. One could argue that wiretapping of a foreigner abroad is somewhere between (a) and (b). The problem is obviously that invariably to wiretap a person abroad nearly mandates that the other party *in* the United States be searched too. Otherwise, the foreigner abroad answering in "yes" and "no" would provide no useful information. Well, that obviously degenerates back to the point of having reason to specifically target the person in the US--and as much as we like to pretend otherwise, guilt by association is not enough for a lot of even very lenient courts to grant effectively roaming warrants to whoever said foreigner speaks to.
Well, except that FISA apparently somewhat, sort of allowed such a warrant--which is a clear violation of the 4th Amendment--but then reversed their position (with no effect as they have no teeth) when it was clear it was being abused. Of course before that point, the Fed didn't bother trying to get a warrant. And even after the whole warrantless wiretapping scandal that invoked the Fed to try to get said general warrant--which strikes me as a clear bill of attainder as enacted under the FISA Amendment Act of 2008--and the revocation of said warrant, there's little sign they'll stop. The only thing the Supreme Court ruling against them would do is mean the Executive Branch will just continue to hold indefinitely some people without trial to avoid the invariably dismissal of a court case for lack of admissible evidence.
When it's considered radical to have a conscience and actually abide by the required rules of disclosure on what all and where all evidence was obtained or that to do so is little more than 'in effect "taking a dive"', I really weep for your actual considerations of what sort of judicial system we should have. But, then, perhaps you'd prefer it if the Obama administration just cut out the middle-man and started summary execution of Tea Party members, Islamic Fundamentalists, and whoever else they don't particularly like? Because it seems clear you have a disdain for the very few people who actually want to follow the law and not hide the wrongdoings of this and previous Administrations who seem to believe their job as Executive Branch is quickly marching to be quite literally the executive branch.
PS - What's with your signature? What are "ordinary opposing views" and how do you begin to define "punish ... in debate"? The former seems loaded to justify your willingness to contradict the latter because you see the opposing view as unordinary, and the latter seems loaded to qualify any strongly worded disagreement as punishment to what you see as your own ordinary opposing views. It would seem clear that your statement is purely subjective, then, which leave it as unproveable.
Re:Can someone remind me? (Score:5, Interesting)
"The US is using its national intelligence agencies to obtain intelligence on terrorists trying to kill people".
Mostly BULLSHIT.
"The intelligence agencies themselves don't have police powers".
Fully BULLSHIT.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has both an intelligence function and police powers. Their primary purpose is to "secure the nation from the many threats it faces". You can be arrested and imprisoned for such things as whistle-blowing, opposing the status quo, being an unapproved immigrant, trying to enter or leave the country without permission (could get you shot on the spot), and many other possible infractions. No gap between them but the propaganda gap.
Re:I can't wait until we vote Bush/Cheney out (Score:2, Interesting)
Oh bullcrap. Any reasonable reading of the IRS evidence shows that it was going after both parts of the political spectrum equally. The law itself is very vague and clearly led to the situation.
Bush made a mockery of FOIA requests as well.
The Attorney General being held in contempt was an action by Dan Issa's group of monkey's. It was a completely partisan vote y a body whose openly avowed purpose was to do anything possible to prevent the re-election of the sitting president.
I notice you DIDN'T mention the Valery Plame affair which in my opinion was FAR worse than anything that has happened in the Obama Whitehouse and led to criminal prosecution of a White House aid.
Re:UNDER THE POLICE STATE ... (Score:5, Interesting)
We have very similar stories, except I am from Africa, and the bit about the swimming. I agree with you entirely.
I have noticed that people born in the USA take their liberty for granted, and are careless with it. On the other hand, those who have seen oppression (and I have seen the trajectory we are once already) understand the real and present danger we face.
Re:UNDER THE POLICE STATE ... (Score:5, Interesting)
First, you say that warrantless wiretaps have been going on for a very long time. Maybe they have, but they were certainly never standard operating procedure. Good hell they're warrantlessly wiretapping EVERYBODY these days. And back then they never came out and said,"Hey, we're doing warrantless wiretaps, and if you don't like it you can fuck right off" like they do now.
Second, saying it's been going on like this for hundreds of years makes it sound like it'll always be this way, so you might as well do nothing. It also lends it an air false legitimacy: "If the founding fathers were doing it it must be okay."
Re:UNDER THE POLICE STATE ... (Score:5, Interesting)
You know, I really hate posts like yours, for a couple of reasons.
First, you say that warrantless wiretaps have been going on for a very long time. Maybe they have, but they were certainly never standard operating procedure. Good hell they're warrantlessly wiretapping EVERYBODY these days. And back then they never came out and said,"Hey, we're doing warrantless wiretaps, and if you don't like it you can fuck right off" like they do now.
Second, saying it's been going on like this for hundreds of years makes it sound like it'll always be this way, so you might as well do nothing. It also lends it an air false legitimacy: "If the founding fathers were doing it it must be okay."
The Founding Fathers were adamantly against this sort of thing and were willing to risk everything to try and create a nation that stood for something better. Their real problem is that they had to deal with the social realities of their day that were not within their power to overturn, such as the institution of slavery and the notions of class and wealth. Yet within those suffocating boundaries they instituted something more that we have failed to realize.
One of their fears about having a Bill of Rights at all, was that the mere existence of such a document may foster the notion that human rights were limited to only those which were enumerated. As it stands today, the Bill of Rights is merely a yardstick by which we measure how far our failures have progressed.
I sincerely believe that future generations will consider us a Dark Age greater than any medieval period, for never has the average person been so petty, emotionally and spiritually immature, ill-informed in the face of an Information Age, navie, and unwilling to stand up for what was right. The medieval serf at least had the excuse of being at the mercy of the information brokers and gatekeepers of their time. Our ignorant, on the other hand, can point only to their own laziness and failure of priorities.
Re:POLICE STATE OF THE FREE! (Score:5, Interesting)
What really matters is how and why the average person does not wake up and realize that the America they were taught to believe in does not exist, and how their own philosophical, intellectual, moral, and character flaws prevented them from seeing this at the very beginning. There is indeed something wrong with a person who argues passionately about minutia like sports and television shows while their nation is decaying. None of that could be an accident.
A religious bigwig recently came back from Europe and commented that it is a "spiritual desert".
The problem with the average American you describe is that s/he is the product of a philosophical desert. People here literally don't know how to think, instead worshipping spirits, technology, sports, sex, money, consumerism; The consummate 'mainstream' American leading the Good Life is a confluence of all of these. I personally know people who have recoiled with revulsion when I casually described pure scientific research as an occupation (e.g. "scientists" are thought of as ensconced within for-profit corporations trying to discover things that are either convenient and/or lethal); both times there was no larger political, religious or other context to the discussion apart from talking about some of the people we know. The first time I chalked it up as a fluke misunderstanding; the second person I knew had understood and it frightened me to my core.
This country now produces strident anti-intellectuals: People who worship technology and "science" for its pure power and ability to effect a result. In some ways they're as alienated as can be from The Enlightenment that ostensibly produced our Constitution. Polls show they--most Americans--love the surveillance state.
Philosophical discussion is regarded as unforgivably weird and threatening here, even among people holding four-year degrees. If you lose the ability to probe concepts in general, you lose the ability to effectively probe/question authority (though making an ineffective, self-immolating show of it never goes out of style).
This is not good news (Score:2, Interesting)
It is rare for the Federal Government to invite a test case over a practice that is clearly unconstitutional.
If we accept the premise that the Federal Government does not take on a "test case" unless it knows it is going to win, we can conclude quite reasonably that not only has the SCOTUS majority opinion already been written, but also that this is going to be the final nail in the coffin for the 4th Amendment.