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Justice Department To Review Domestic Spying
Posted by
kdawson
on Wed Nov 29, 2006 07:57 AM
from the yep-they're-listening dept.
from the yep-they're-listening dept.
orgelspieler writes, "According to the New York Times, Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine has opened a review of his department's role in the domestic spying program. Democrats (and some Republicans) have been requesting an all-out investigation into the legality of the so-called 'Terrorist Surveillance Program' since it was made public. But this new inquiry stops short of evaluating the constitutional legitimacy of the program." From the article: "The review, Mr. Fine said in his letter, will examine the controls in place at the Justice Department for the eavesdropping, the way information developed from it was used, and the department's 'compliance with legal requirements governing the program'... Several Democrats suggested that the timing of his review might be tied to their takeover of Congress in this month's midterm elections as a way to preempt expected Democratic investigations of the N.S.A. program."
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There is one reason for this (Score:5, Insightful)
"I'm sorry Senator, I cannot comment on the program due to an ongoing Justice Department investigation" - Alberto Gonzales, speaking to the new Democrat controlled congress sometime next year
Finkployd
They'll Still Be Remembered For What They Did (Score:5, Informative)
Regardless if they're doing this to prevent a congressional hearing, I think all of Bush's cabinet are in up to their necks with this thing. They've promoted it, publicly praised it & even publicly defended it--I'm excited to see it publicly scrutinized & watch revisionist history write them all off as enemies of the constitution. I mean, my grandfather tells me about the horrible things the president authorized against Japanese-Americans during World War II & my father tells me the horrible things that Nixon did. I'm sure there will a time when I'm a haggled old coot that keeps telling my kids how lucky they are not to have a president that's pushing for government archival of their phone & internet records--and that's the only part I knew about which mean it must be twice as worse! So I put an onion in my pocket which was the style at the time
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This domestic spying is without warrant. Thus, it very clearly violates that amendment of the Constitution known as the Fourth. It also is against the very specific set of statutes known as the FISA statutes. FISA is short for F
Re:They'll Still Be Remembered For What They Did (Score:4, Interesting)
You know, it's funny. I have a lot of friends and family who believe Bush can do no wrong (since we are at war and he is protecting us all) with all of these executive power grabs, but their eyes glass over and faces go black when I ask if they would be comfortable with Kerry or Hillery Clinton bringing those same surveillance and detention powers to bear against gun owners, anti-abortion activists, other conservative groups, etc. Did everyone just forget that Bush (who they oddly trust implicitly) will not be in power forever.
Finkployd
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Did everyone just forget that Bush (who they oddly trust implicitly) will not be in power forever.
And that this 'war' will continue forever, too.
Conservativism==Whatever the Republicans in power are doing, exactly until the Americans get so annoyed at
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Th
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The problem is, when a large group of people essentially hijack a term and take it as their own, there's not a lot you can do about it. I used to call myself a conservative, until I realized that I didn't agree with any of the new Evangelical would-be "co
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It's also fairly well known that the Republican party T
I have to disagree with you on this (Score:3, Insightful)
While I generally agree with you on most points, I'll have to take exception to this one. The fact that people misuse a term to cloak their misdeeds does not mean that the term never had a cogent meaning, or that it is devoid of substance.
Would you say
Re:To think I voted for Bush (Score:4, Insightful)
You and me both, but really it was hard to forsee.
I mean, we just went through the Clinton years where Gore was spearheading the clipper initiative which would have effectively make privacy (and all non clipper crypto) illegal and given the government the ability to spy on everything, while having John Ashcroft emerge as the champion of privacy by leading the opposition to the clipper initiative. I really didn't expect the total and complete 180 on the issue.
Now I know better, both parties are want total access to our lives and supreme executive power (all in the name of keeping us safe). They just pretend to be outraged when the other party is in office and expanding those powers. Believe me, if the democrats take the whitehouse next election they will completely forget about their opposition to any spying and the republicians will suddenly oppose it.
Finkployd
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Re:To think I voted for Bush (Score:5, Funny)
A) Democrats
A) Republicans
(no, that's not a typo)
Preemptive strike (Score:5, Insightful)
So this is a preemptive move, designed to head off a full investigation.
Stops short? (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless, when they say "Justice Department" they actually mean "Judges," then of course it "stops short" of determining the constitutionality of a program. That's what judges do. They don't always do it well, but that's what they do.
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Absolutely correct. The Justice Department will make a finding about the operations as they relate to current law. (The really interesting bet is whether they will resort to referencing Presidential War Powers to aid the lipsticking of this pig.)
Regarding
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Point 2 is that Judges DO rule on constitutionality, and they are the final word. Article III of the constitution. Try reading it some time.
Wow... only 10 posts... (Score:5, Interesting)
- We're too tired of talking about this issue
- We realize that we all agree it's evil, and that no one is listening to slashdot
- We're somewhat afraid that this topic will actually be read carefully by the Justice Department
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This one is going to be good...
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Its only 8:44 am EST, most of us haven't enjoyed our coffee yet. Furthermore, what much more can we say that already hasn't been said?
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- Its about time!
- Its a trap!
Cowboy Neal..or somethingYou forgot:
Clinton's People Impressed with it. (Score:2, Insightful)
But that will not prevent the coming Congressional Wankfest and Witch Hunt. Henry Waxman as much as said so.
The next two years will be a reprisal of the inept, ill conceived and utterly useless I
This program sounds fishy. (Score:4, Insightful)
In all these years one can count the number of terrorist convictions racked up by the DOJ on one hand. Experts are saying there is no vast al queda presence in the United States (see PBS Frontline "enemy within" http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/enemywith
Who the heck are they listening to...?
Re:This program sounds fishy. (Score:5, Insightful)
These people basically have a centralized, facist mindset. They don't really believe in freedom; they think that the masses people need to be managed and controlled. They believe that there should be a class of ruling elites who run the show, and then the common folk, who have no real power or influence. They view society as a corporation, with a few owners, some managers, and a bunch of peon workers who just take orders. They want to be the CEO sitting in the control chair, watching a real-time dashboard of everything that everyone is doing.
All of this tracking and surveillance they are doing has nothing to do with watching Al Qaida and terrorists. What they want to do is what all totalitarian governments -- be they communist or fascist -- want to do: track everybody. That way you can have control over everybody. Knowledge is power. Check out "IBM and the Holocaust". The Nazis were using then state-of-the-art information processing technology to keep track of Jews, opposition groups, everybody. Everybody had a number, everybody had a file. The same thing happened in communist Russia and in Iraq under Hussein. It's the calling card of totalitarianism.
The smoking gun is the Total Information Awareness [wikipedia.org] program which was introduced shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. It is a conglomerate database of all electronic information that exists about everybody in the US -- all your bank, medical, school, work records -- even the purchases you make with your shopping club card. Due to public outcry, the program was ostensibly canceled, but in actuality all of the seperate features were just broken up into smaller programs. Check out the wikipedia article linked above.
9/11 was the excuse for all of these fascistic plans to come out of the woodwork and be given a go. Yes, we do need to be protected from Al Qaida and other terrorists, but not at the expense of the constitution.
Things are not bad yet, but they could go bad. Pieces are being moved into place that would give a dictator all of the tools that he would need to exercise incredible power. We are already seeing the media bullied, silenced, and propagandized. I guess the next sign of things getting worse would probably be disappearances and prominent people flee^H^H^H^Hleaving the country.
Glenn Fine (Score:2)
"Domestic"? (Score:2)
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How do they find out who is a terrorist and who is not? A part of that process is listening into RANDOM conversations with people they THINK might have SOME connection.
In translation: They
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You are correct in that the spying program is not "Domestic". This is just a term thrown around by politicos that want to frame the debate as one where one side is "Protecting the freedoms of Americans" and the other side is "Trying to take away o
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Otherwise, given that the Justice Department has steadfastly refused to give any details on who is being monitored (to avoid "aiding t
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If tha
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God help us all if Kevin Bacon ever ends up on a watchlist. I have a Bacon number of 2.0.
<i>First they came for the actor
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I'll believe it when I see results (Score:3, Insightful)
Posse Without a Warrant (Score:5, Informative)
Bush violated the FISA [wikipedia.org]. The FISA is an exception to basic Constitutional guarantees of protection from government privacy invasion and arbitrary searches, within an extended compromise with rare, extreme cases where the government claims extraordinary necessity for speed and secrecy that the normal due process cannot accommodate.
Bush violated the FISA exception that requires him to get a warrant. Therefore he violated the Constitution. Many times, over many years. As a matter of policy, with a large staff behind him. Bush is a criminal of the highest order. That means impeachment. You or I would go to Federal prison for years and be bankrupted [wikipedia.org]. Bush will clear brush at his ranch.
DoD (NSA) has no standing in civilian courts (Score:3, Insightful)
Bush's Eight Rules of Modern Autocratic Government (Score:5, Insightful)
- This war on terrorism is our new Cold War. It will last a generation or two.
- Because we are at war it is necessary to engage in certain behaviors--renditions, torture,
domestic spying, secret prisons, etc.
- We cannot tell you what we are doing because it would compromise national security during a
time of war.
- The courts cannot review what we are doing because it will compromise national security during
a time of war.
- Any newspaper reporter or news outlet that reports a leak of these programs can be put under
oath and forced to reveal sources, under threat of going to jail for contempt.
- Only select members of Congress can know what we are doing. But they cannot tell anyone because it will compromise national security.
- When Congress passes laws, the president has the right to ignore these law if he believes they
infringe upon his war powers or his role as Commander in Chief.
- The courts cannot review the president's decision in rule no. 7 because it would compromise
national security.
These rules have the very convenient effect of disabling ALL of the checks and balances on the executive branch of the government. Frankly, unless many thousands of Americans are dying, violence is erupting everywhere, and this country is teetering on the brink of economic/political oblivion, I see no reason to install an emergency autocratic government. Even if we were at that point, I would still want some above-board cost/benefit arguments explained to me as to how I'm going to be safer in reality (as to just "feeling" safer) by giving up some of my civil liberties and watching the world learn to hate us.Much like the rest of his political strategy (Iraq war, etc), Bush puts forward nothing but a flim-flam job of justifying inflated neo-con theories of the use of discretionary executive force. How nice it would be to make all the trains run exactly on time, if we could just arrest anyone who used to make them run late? Fascism has a certain appeal when you don't realize that it actually is fascism.
We need checks and balances in the country.. anybody who doesn't believe that should closely read the Federalist Papers. Those guys were certified geniuses in the realistic exercise of power. They had the benefit of 1,000 years of European wars and history to examine human nature at its Machiavellian worst. They knew EXACTLY what they were doing when they set up checks on presidential power, they envisioned internal and external threats to the country every bit as clear and present as they are today.
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And how do you know this? Because they told you so?
Yes, actually. If we all took your stance then we could assume the government is kidnapping babies out of hospital maternity wards and turning them into mutant super fighters. How do you know the
Re:What the Program Actually Is (Score:5, Informative)
From the NSA warrantless surveillance controversy article [wikipedia.org] article at wikipedia:
"On May 22, 2006, it was reported by Seymour Hersh and Wired News that under this authority, the NSA had installed monitoring and interception supercomputers within the routing hubs of almost all major US telecoms companies capable of intercepting and monitoring a large proportion of all domestic and international telephone and Internet connections, and had used this to perform mass eavesdropping and order police investigations of tens of thousands of ordinary Americans without judicial warrants. " [Emphasis mine]
Here [newyorker.com] is the link to the Hersh article, and here [wired.com] is the link to the Wired article.
Please, wake up.
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Oh, right. That's ok. As long as it's limited to people whom someone, somewhere, for reason's you'll never know, has decided to call 'known terrorists'.
Phew.
That's a weight off my mind.
I guess it seemed like there was a problem, but really, there wasn't.
Re:What the Program Actually Is (Score:5, Insightful)
My understanding is that the true nature and extent of this program is still top secret. All that has been released to the public is a couple of leaks and a bunch of denials/justifications from the government. Given the fact that before the leaks Bush was claiming that they were getting warrants for all their tapping, what is the rational basis for believing what they say now? If this program is still top secret, doesn't the Administration actually have a duty to lie about or obfuscate the true nature and extent of the program?
The program as you and the Administration describe it could easily fit within the existing FISA law. Which raises the question, why risk the political and legal fall-out of avoiding the FISA court if you don't have to? Why is the lame duck Congress trying to push through new legislation to authorize the program if the program could actually fit within the existing legal framework?
Re:What the Program Actually Is (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, and as we well know the government is totally infallible and would never falsely accuse anyone of being a terrorist or anything else. Even when they know they could get away with it because there is absolutely no independent oversight (gotta keep those activist judges out of the loop, they just complicate matters). We have a strict system of checks and balances in this country, and of course habeas corpus and presumption of innocence applies to us all....unless you are a known terrorists. "Known to who" you ask? "What makes one a known terrorist" you ask? Those are dangerous, un-American questions, boy. You best let the President do his work and keep us all safe and not worry about insignificant details like that.
It is not, as some believe, the government wiretapping phone calls internal to the United States.
Nope, absolutely not. I mean, before someone leaked it we did not think they were wiretapping any calls without properly obtaining warrants, but since it was leaked we know that they are wiretapping international calls without warrants. We still think they are not tapping internal calls this way, and what are the chances we would be wrong again?
And when it comes to the Internet, I'm sure those classified NSA server closets that AT&T has are where they keep the doughnuts.
Finkployd
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you are correct the exposed warantless tapping is international calls, and then any calls that are tied to those international calls.
however the
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What the headline calls domestic spying is actually the tapping of phone calls to and from people inside the United States to and from someone outside the United States who is a known terrorist or member of Al Queda. It is not, as some believe, the govern
Re:What the Program Actually Is (Score:5, Insightful)
And how do you know if a person is a terrorist? Obviously, by convicting him of it in a court of law. Until then, the person being spied on is a lawful private citizen, with all the rights affirmed by the Constitution!
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Re:What the Program Actually Is (Score:5, Informative)
I seem to recall a few years back when Bush was claiming that the war would be paid for with Iraqi oil. Of course, now that the cost of the war is expected to pass one [msn.com] or maybe two [guardian.co.uk] trillion dollars, Iraqi oil couldn't pay for it, so it's easy to backpedal on that claim.
You are correct sir.
No, he is wrong, there are two programs. One which tapped calls internationally as the grandparent posted, and a second one that collected phone records on nearly every single American's domestic calls. [usatoday.com] Did you call in for pizza? Did a terrorist call in for pizza (God forbid that terrorists actually run the pizza delivery place, mafia style)? Does it matter? Who knows! Nobody knows what the NSA is going to use such an enormous block of data for, since the vast majority (99.999999999999%?) of the calls have nothing to do with terrorism. Google other articles about Qwest's refusal to participate to see the millions in juicy taxpayer dollars they passed up that the other telecoms were apparently all too happy to suck out of your tax dollars for this service.
is infested with many of the same moonbat types
It's a shame the infestation hasn't managed to drive out the infestation of ignorant Bush supporters who can't even keep track of what their president is doing. Maybe we need to swallow a cat to get the spider now?