Intelligence Court Rules Wiretapping Power Legal

[smokeyjoe]

Originally posted by: ironwing
Secret courts with secret proceedings. Sounds utterly un-American to me, not patriotic at all. What kind of judge would agree to sit on such a court?

Seriously.. the only newsworthy information here is that this was all done in a secret court! WTF!! AAGH!!

"Nobody's stepping on the constitution." - Literally, I guess you are right. But figuratively I would say it's more like wiping your @$$ with it.

 

[Woofmeister]

Originally posted by: PokerGuy

Originally posted by: Woofmeister
The opinion can be downloaded here.

The holding unambiguously supports the proposition that no warrant is required to conduct surveillance of foreigners or agents of foreign powers located outside the United States:

For these reasons, we hold that a foreign intelligence exception to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement exists when surveillance is conducted to obtain foreign intelligence for national security purposes and is directed against foreign powers or agents of foreign powers reasonably believed to be located outside the United States.

That's the entire Bush wiretapping program in a nutshell.

My issue is not with what they are allowed to wiretap, my question is, who's keeping an eye to see that they are monitoring only what they are supposed to be monitoring if they are not getting any warrants? What is the oversight mechanism to make sure they are doing what they are supposed to do? The court says they can monitor foreign communications, but with no warrants or oversight, how does anyone know what they are monitoring at all?

That's obviously an important concern (one that I personally share) but the potential for abuse exists in any wiretap situation including domestic wiretaps pursuant to a valid warrant. Example, a criminal suspect who's telephone is tapped calls his lawyer for legal advice. The law says the tap should be shut off until the conversation is completed, but nobody really believes that happens.

 

[alien42]

winnar1984

 

[Farang]

I only have a basic understanding of this issue so I will ask.. with the harsh criticism of this policy, what is the difference between voice data being transmitted in and out of the country and material objects which are subject to court-free scrutiny? Is that an example being used to justify this and if so how do you refute that? It seems everything coming in and out of the U.S. has been traditionally subject to court-free inspection.

 

[Woofmeister]

Originally posted by: Farang
I only have a basic understanding of this issue so I will ask.. with the harsh criticism of this policy, what is the difference between voice data being transmitted in and out of the country and material objects which are subject to court-free scrutiny? Is that an example being used to justify this and if so how do you refute that? It seems everything coming in and out of the U.S. has been traditionally subject to court-free inspection.

Good question! Somebody's definitely got their thinking cap on.

There is a recognized exception to the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement called the border search exception. Basically, the exception holds that warrants are not required and that searches are presumptively reasonable so long as they fall within the category of "routine" searches conducted at ports of entry.

And no, strip searches are not "routine."

 

[Jhhnn]

Originally posted by: eskimospy
Leave it to winnar to completely miss the point. (real shocking I know)

The question before this court, and the question that it answered was NOT if Bush's warrantless wiretapping program was legal or not, it was if the Protect America Act was constitutional or not. I'm not aware of anyone who has seriously argued that the PAA was unconstitutional.

After the ruling of this court, Bush's actions remain every bit as illegal as they ever were. That trampling of both federal law and the Constitution were of course what everyone was so mad about to begin with, but lets not let those pesky facts get in the way.

This. Bushfans attempt to portray this as some sort of vindication of Bush Admin policy prior to 2007 when it's no such thing.

But it'll hold the Palinites in thrall, because they only read the headlines, listen to the lead-in soundbite, believe the latest slogan... further discussion is only affirmation in those circles, shouting hallelujah! to the preacher's exhortations...

 

[heyheybooboo]

Originally posted by: Jhhnn

Originally posted by: eskimospy
Leave it to winnar to completely miss the point. (real shocking I know)

The question before this court, and the question that it answered was NOT if Bush's warrantless wiretapping program was legal or not, it was if the Protect America Act was constitutional or not. I'm not aware of anyone who has seriously argued that the PAA was unconstitutional.

After the ruling of this court, Bush's actions remain every bit as illegal as they ever were. That trampling of both federal law and the Constitution were of course what everyone was so mad about to begin with, but lets not let those pesky facts get in the way.

This. Bushfans attempt to portray this as some sort of vindication of Bush Admin policy prior to 2007 when it's no such thing.

But it'll hold the Palinites in thrall, because they only read the headlines, listen to the lead-in soundbite, believe the latest slogan... further discussion is only affirmation in those circles, shouting hallelujah! to the preacher's exhortations...

Yup. The GOP (Great Obfuscating Propagandists) rolls on not learning anything from the past two national elections.

 

[AFMatt]

Originally posted by: smokeyjoe

Originally posted by: ironwing
Secret courts with secret proceedings. Sounds utterly un-American to me, not patriotic at all. What kind of judge would agree to sit on such a court?

Seriously.. the only newsworthy information here is that this was all done in a secret court! WTF!! AAGH!!

"Nobody's stepping on the constitution." - Literally, I guess you are right. But figuratively I would say it's more like wiping your @$$ with it.

It's the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. We set it up in the late 70s. The reason these court proceedings are secret is they discuss classified matters of intel and national security.
Oh, and if I recall correctly, this court was initially created by Congress in response to how we went about doing surveillance/wiretapping on foreign interests.

 

[Lemon law]

The somewhat implied myth in this thread is to assume that this particular ruling will stand any long terms tests of time. As other court ruling are likely to greatly water down this particular ruling or reverse it entirely.

To start out with we will have a brand new Justice department, who may not feel they should defend this ruling in courts as its appealed. And while Addington and Dick Cheney and others who have done much to foist off such violations of the constitution, after 1/20/2009 they will have no more legal standing than any other private citizen, and as such will be muzzled and powerless pit bulls with no AG at their beck and call. Similarly the new head of homeland security may say, we do not need these extra constitution powers to do our job.

Some of you extreme right wing whiners, you lost the election of 2008 partly because of this and other abuses, get over it. You may win a victory or two in the closing days, but the tide of battle has shifted. Stock up on your crying towels, you will probably need them.

 

[AFMatt]

Originally posted by: Lemon law
The somewhat implied myth in this thread is to assume that this particular ruling will stand any long terms tests of time. As other court ruling are likely to greatly water down this particular ruling or reverse it entirely.

To start out with we will have a brand new Justice department, who may not feel they should defend this ruling in courts as its appealed. And while Addington and Dick Cheney and others who have done much to foist off such violations of the constitution, after 1/20/2009 they will have no more legal standing than any other private citizen, and as such will be muzzled and powerless pit bulls with no AG at their beck and call. Similarly the new head of homeland security may say, we do not need these extra constitution powers to do our job.

Some of you extreme right wing whiners, you lost the election of 2008 partly because of this and other abuses, get over it. You may win a victory or two in the closing days, but the tide of battle has shifted. Stock up on your crying towels, you will probably need them.

Tests of time? This isn't anything new. These types of rulings have already stood the tests of time, as we had similar ones in the 60s and 70s, before the foreign intelligence surveillance act (authorized President to order warrantless wiretaps on foreign interests) was born in the late 70s. The only difference today is we have more domestic overwatch to pull into the picture than we did back then. Some of these people being tapped could be U.S. citizens, but working with/for terrorist orgs. The principal, however, remains the same: We can wiretap/monitor comm to/between foreign interests perceived to be a threat to national security, without a warrant.

By the way, since you want to slam right wingers for some reason.. Didn't Dianne Feinstein put together a bill a couple years ago that reaffirmed, and even expanded some of the President's capabilities with the foreign intel surveillance act?

 

[Farang]

Originally posted by: Woofmeister

Originally posted by: Farang
I only have a basic understanding of this issue so I will ask.. with the harsh criticism of this policy, what is the difference between voice data being transmitted in and out of the country and material objects which are subject to court-free scrutiny? Is that an example being used to justify this and if so how do you refute that? It seems everything coming in and out of the U.S. has been traditionally subject to court-free inspection.

Good question! Somebody's definitely got their thinking cap on.

There is a recognized exception to the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement called the border search exception. Basically, the exception holds that warrants are not required and that searches are presumptively reasonable so long as they fall within the category of "routine" searches conducted at ports of entry.

And no, strip searches are not "routine."

From what I read there it seems as if the standard has been that they are allowed to search whatever they want, including electronic data, and only need probable cause (and possibly a warrant) when the search involves your bodily cavities. So it seems to me stretching that requirement to data transmitted over phone lines, to try to say that is as invasive as a body cavity search, is going to be an uphill climb. Not necessarily that I agree with it or anything, I don't know enough about it, but this doesn't come across to me as being anything radical.

edit: I'm inclined to think the uproar over this stems more from the domestic wiretapping scandal and people are confusing the two

 

[wwswimming]

Originally posted by: Brainonska511
Your commentary is ridiculous. I value my right to privacy and have a phone conversation without having the government listen in. And since when is blindly defending America by stepping on the Constitution (as was done with warrantless wiretapping) patriotic? I would think a true patriot would be defending the United States from threats from within as well as from outside the US; defending against threats from within by defending the Constitution.

The biggest issue was government listening in without getting a warrant from the rubber-stamp FISA court first. If they got a warrant, okay, whatever, carry on. I just want oversight of the executive since our country is based around balance and separation of powers.

i agree with you, but, if you have any views that are contrary to the official
gospel coming out of Washington (Israel is our friend, the War on Terror
improves national security, etc.), then you will attract attention.

in the mid-90's i had an interview for computer graphics work at Pacific
Bell corporate headquarters on 150 Montgomery in SF. it was so wierd, it
was like sci-fi. the building was all managers & contractors. the person i
interviewed with started out by making it clear that he and some of his co-
workers worked for government intelligence agencies.

it was also a fascinating interview. the guy i interviewed with was a brilliant
network engineer. they had a set-up like Skype - in 1994 - live video tele-
conferencing.

i'm sure that that group was colleagues with Mark Klein, the technician that
ended up being a whistleblower about the AT&T spying room.

 

[Woofmeister]

Originally posted by: Jhhnn

Originally posted by: eskimospy
Leave it to winnar to completely miss the point. (real shocking I know)

The question before this court, and the question that it answered was NOT if Bush's warrantless wiretapping program was legal or not, it was if the Protect America Act was constitutional or not. I'm not aware of anyone who has seriously argued that the PAA was unconstitutional.

After the ruling of this court, Bush's actions remain every bit as illegal as they ever were. That trampling of both federal law and the Constitution were of course what everyone was so mad about to begin with, but lets not let those pesky facts get in the way.

This. Bushfans attempt to portray this as some sort of vindication of Bush Admin policy prior to 2007 when it's no such thing.

But it'll hold the Palinites in thrall, because they only read the headlines, listen to the lead-in soundbite, believe the latest slogan... further discussion is only affirmation in those circles, shouting hallelujah! to the preacher's exhortations...

Wow, way to not read the opinion. And you are accusing other people of just reading the headline?

I've posted the opinion and the portion of the holding that supports the Bush Administration's warrantless wiretapping. Just scroll up.

If you want to argue that the Bush Administration's wiretapping program prior to TPA violated FISA, that's an argument that can still be made, but there's no argument after this decision that the wiretapping violated the Fourth Amendment prohibition against unreasonable search and seizure.

 

[Woofmeister]

Originally posted by: Lemon law
The somewhat implied myth in this thread is to assume that this particular ruling will stand any long terms tests of time. As other court ruling are likely to greatly water down this particular ruling or reverse it entirely.

To start out with we will have a brand new Justice department, who may not feel they should defend this ruling in courts as its appealed. And while Addington and Dick Cheney and others who have done much to foist off such violations of the constitution, after 1/20/2009 they will have no more legal standing than any other private citizen, and as such will be muzzled and powerless pit bulls with no AG at their beck and call. Similarly the new head of homeland security may say, we do not need these extra constitution powers to do our job.

Some of you extreme right wing whiners, you lost the election of 2008 partly because of this and other abuses, get over it. You may win a victory or two in the closing days, but the tide of battle has shifted. Stock up on your crying towels, you will probably need them.

The holding is already the result of an appeal. It can only be reversed by the U.S. Supreme Court. I doubt they'll even grant certiorari given that there is nothing in the holding that is a major departure from prior precedent.

 

[Jhhnn]

Originally posted by: Woofmeister
The opinion can be downloaded here.

The holding unambiguously supports the proposition that no warrant is required to conduct surveillance of foreigners or agents of foreign powers located outside the United States:

For these reasons, we hold that a foreign intelligence exception to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement exists when surveillance is conducted to obtain foreign intelligence for national security purposes and is directed against foreign powers or agents of foreign powers reasonably believed to be located outside the United States.

That's the entire Bush wiretapping program in a nutshell.

You must mean this post, right, Woofmeister?

And, of course, you're correct until you refer to the foreign wiretapping as the Bush program in a nutshell. They've done more than that, and there's no point in claiming they haven't...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N...rveillance_controversy

It seems highly likey that they've engaged in purely domestic wiretapping sans warrants, as well, but we'll have to wait for their all-encompassing shroud of "national security" to be lifted before that can be confirmed or disproven...

 

[Woofmeister]

Originally posted by: Jhhnn

Originally posted by: Woofmeister
The opinion can be downloaded here.

The holding unambiguously supports the proposition that no warrant is required to conduct surveillance of foreigners or agents of foreign powers located outside the United States:

For these reasons, we hold that a foreign intelligence exception to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement exists when surveillance is conducted to obtain foreign intelligence for national security purposes and is directed against foreign powers or agents of foreign powers reasonably believed to be located outside the United States.

That's the entire Bush wiretapping program in a nutshell.

You must mean this post, right, Woofmeister?

And, of course, you're correct until you refer to the foreign wiretapping as the Bush program in a nutshell. They've done more than that, and there's no point in claiming they haven't...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N...rveillance_controversy

It seems highly likey that they've engaged in purely domestic wiretapping sans warrants, as well, but we'll have to wait for their all-encompassing shroud of "national security" to be lifted before that can be confirmed or disproven...

Uhm, I must have missed something. The Bush Administration wiretapped purely domestic telephone calls without obtaining warrants? Unless those calls involved agents of foreign powers, that would be a per se violation of the Fourth Amendment, but I've never heard any credible suggestion that such a thing took place. Nor have I ever heard anyone defend such a practice.

 

[AFMatt]

Originally posted by: Woofmeister

Originally posted by: Jhhnn

Originally posted by: Woofmeister
The opinion can be downloaded here.

The holding unambiguously supports the proposition that no warrant is required to conduct surveillance of foreigners or agents of foreign powers located outside the United States:

For these reasons, we hold that a foreign intelligence exception to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement exists when surveillance is conducted to obtain foreign intelligence for national security purposes and is directed against foreign powers or agents of foreign powers reasonably believed to be located outside the United States.

That's the entire Bush wiretapping program in a nutshell.

You must mean this post, right, Woofmeister?

And, of course, you're correct until you refer to the foreign wiretapping as the Bush program in a nutshell. They've done more than that, and there's no point in claiming they haven't...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N...rveillance_controversy

It seems highly likey that they've engaged in purely domestic wiretapping sans warrants, as well, but we'll have to wait for their all-encompassing shroud of "national security" to be lifted before that can be confirmed or disproven...

Uhm, I must have missed something. The Bush Administration wiretapped purely domestic telephone calls without obtaining warrants? Unless those calls involved agents of foreign powers, that would be a per se violation of the Fourth Amendment, but I've never heard any credible suggestion that such a thing took place. Nor have I ever heard anyone defend such a practice.

You haven't heard any credible suggestion of such activities taking place because they haven't taken place. You will only hear 'suggestions' from people who bind themselves to a political party, albeit generally blindly as rediculous as it may be, and want to make <insert president here> look like the bad guy. The truth of the matter is all the agencies involved in this type of thing would have had their asses handed to them 10x over by now if there were any cases of purely domestic wiretapping going on. Cry coverups or what ever other BS you want to claim, but neither Bush nor Cheney has enough power to silence those who want justice served when due.

 

[Craig234]

As always, Glenn Greenwald does a great job explaining the situation. He's the best writer on this topic I know of.

Furthermore, he exposes how the right-wing media lied about the story.

Here's a link to his article:
Link

It's also on salon.com.

 

[kage69]

Good link Craig, those who keep parroting the "Bush was vindicated" need to read it and cease the mindless indignation which makes them look so foolish (and after 8 years of it, you guys really need to take a break!)

The neoconservative media circle jerk trying (yet again) to cloud the waters of debate in whatever way they can, still trying to save face over 8 years of supporting failure and outright lies. *golf clap*

 

[Woofmeister]

So now you all are conceding that the Bush wiretaps did not violate the Fourth Amendment but are falling back on the old now-discredited violation of FISA argument as advanced by Greenwald and others?

Don't make me laugh, Greenwald's argument of a FISA violation can be dispatched with a single citation (that's how lawyers are supposed to do it by the way):

The Truong court, as did all the other courts to have decided the issue, held that the President did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information. It was incumbent upon the court, therefore, to determine the boundaries of that constitutional authority in the case before it. We take for granted that the President does have that authority and, assuming that is so, FISA could not encroach on the President?s constitutional power.

In re Sealed Case No. 02-001

Greenwald's not much of a lawyer.

This is obviously not the place to engage in a full-blown legal argument over the Constitutional limits of FISA and whether or not Congress can even validly interfere with the inherent power of the President through FISA, but once the Fourth Amendment goes out the window, you are now serving up some pretty thin gruel by arguing that this whole purported scandal is about violation of a statute that no court has ever found to be an encroachment on the power of the President.

I'd be careful circumscribing the power of the President--Obama's going to need every bit of it.

Let me close by saying I am definitely not a fan of Bush. The real scandal of the Bush Administration is how he constrained the rights of defrauded citizens to obtain civil redress by packing the federal court with mindless Chamber of Commerce stooges, but I've never seen any reasoned legal argument that convinced me that Bush's wiretapping was illegal.

 

[Jhhnn]

Remarkable bit of willful blindness on your part, woofmeister. Gonzales admitted to warrantless wiretapping of communications where one side was within the US, in direct violation of FISA law, necessitating congressional action to grant retroactive immunity for telco participation. FISA law was written and made into law to clarify citizens' right of privacy under the 4th amendment, and was voluntarily entered into by the executive branch. Every president is constrained by the lawful actions of his predecessors, whether they like it or not.

And, of course you haven't seen any convincing arguments, given that there's no disclosure under the blanket of "national security"... even though you choose to completely disregard Gonzales' open admission as the confession it truly is...

The truth is that the court did not address wiretapping activity that may have occurred outside the timeframe when the temporary Protect America Act was in force, so the portrayal of the Court's decision as some sort of vindication of Bush Admin activities prior to that act are blatantly false and misleading. Those questions were simply not addressed, and may never be.

edit-typo

 

[manowar821]

Wow, then the intelligence court can burn, for all I fuckin care.

No, you know what, we should reverse this completely. Wiretap the government, get to listen in on EVERYTHING they do, 100% transparency. Of-course that'll never happen, because they're god damn criminals, as well as the people who support them. I'm looking at you, winnar111.

I'm 100% for wiretapping! WIRETAPPING ON THE GOVERNMENT, that is.