IGBT
Lifer
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..so if it's determined that an American is working in conjunction with a forign power..the president has inherent authority to conduct warrentless searches.
December 20, 2005
President Clinton also lobbied for and signed the Orwellian Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, which is forcing every telephone company in America to retrofit its phone lines and networks so that they will be more accessible to police wiretaps.
Independent from the question of whether this is legal, of course, is the separate charge that the program represents a Bushitlerian departure from prior standards. That seems to be hard to maintain -- in many ways, Bush's policies are merely a continuation of those under Clinton, only with somewhat more vigor post 9/11. If you want to look back on the Clinton Administration as some sort of civil-liberties golden age, you probably shouldn't read this report from the CATO Institute entitled "Dereliction of Duty: The Constitutional Record of President Clinton." But here's a relevant excerpt:
The Clinton administration has repeatedly attempted to play down the significance of the warrant clause. In fact, President Clinton has asserted the power to conduct warrantless searches, warrantless drug testing of public school students, and warrantless wiretapping.
The Clinton administration claims that it can bypass the warrant clause for "national security" purposes. In July 1994 Deputy Attorney General Jamie S. Gorelick told the House Select Committee on Intelligence that the president "has inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches for foreign intelligence purposes." [51] According to Gorelick, the president (or his attorney general) need only satisfy himself that an American is working in conjunction with a foreign power before a search can take place. . . .
It is unclear why the president made warrantless roving wiretaps a priority matter since judges routinely approve wiretap applications by federal prosecutors. According to a 1995 report by the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts, it had been years since a federal district court turned down a prosecutor's request for a wiretap order. [68] President Clinton is apparently seeking to free his administration from any potential judicial interference with its wiretapping plans. There is a problem, of course, with the power that the president desires: it is precisely the sort of unchecked power that the Fourth Amendment's warrant clause was designed to curb. As the Supreme Court noted in Katz v. United States (1967), the judicial procedure of antecedent justification before a neutral magistrate is a "constitutional precondition," not only to the search of a home, but also to eavesdropping on private conversations within the home. [69]
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Censoring the Internet
President Clinton supports federal censorship of the Internet. In February 1996 he signed the Communications Decency Act into law. That act makes it a crime to transmit or allow "indecent" material to be transmitted over computer networks to which minors have access. But since there is no affordable, effective way for nonprofit or low-profit speakers to restrict children's access to such a broad, ill-defined category of material, the CDA has the effect of banning much speech from the Internet. [28] As civil liberties attorney Harvey Silvergate observed, "Overnight, the federal government transformed the newest and freest medium of communication into the most heavily censored." [
..so if it's determined that an American is working in conjunction with a forign power..the president has inherent authority to conduct warrentless searches.
December 20, 2005
President Clinton also lobbied for and signed the Orwellian Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, which is forcing every telephone company in America to retrofit its phone lines and networks so that they will be more accessible to police wiretaps.
Independent from the question of whether this is legal, of course, is the separate charge that the program represents a Bushitlerian departure from prior standards. That seems to be hard to maintain -- in many ways, Bush's policies are merely a continuation of those under Clinton, only with somewhat more vigor post 9/11. If you want to look back on the Clinton Administration as some sort of civil-liberties golden age, you probably shouldn't read this report from the CATO Institute entitled "Dereliction of Duty: The Constitutional Record of President Clinton." But here's a relevant excerpt:
The Clinton administration has repeatedly attempted to play down the significance of the warrant clause. In fact, President Clinton has asserted the power to conduct warrantless searches, warrantless drug testing of public school students, and warrantless wiretapping.
The Clinton administration claims that it can bypass the warrant clause for "national security" purposes. In July 1994 Deputy Attorney General Jamie S. Gorelick told the House Select Committee on Intelligence that the president "has inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches for foreign intelligence purposes." [51] According to Gorelick, the president (or his attorney general) need only satisfy himself that an American is working in conjunction with a foreign power before a search can take place. . . .
It is unclear why the president made warrantless roving wiretaps a priority matter since judges routinely approve wiretap applications by federal prosecutors. According to a 1995 report by the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts, it had been years since a federal district court turned down a prosecutor's request for a wiretap order. [68] President Clinton is apparently seeking to free his administration from any potential judicial interference with its wiretapping plans. There is a problem, of course, with the power that the president desires: it is precisely the sort of unchecked power that the Fourth Amendment's warrant clause was designed to curb. As the Supreme Court noted in Katz v. United States (1967), the judicial procedure of antecedent justification before a neutral magistrate is a "constitutional precondition," not only to the search of a home, but also to eavesdropping on private conversations within the home. [69]
Text
Censoring the Internet
President Clinton supports federal censorship of the Internet. In February 1996 he signed the Communications Decency Act into law. That act makes it a crime to transmit or allow "indecent" material to be transmitted over computer networks to which minors have access. But since there is no affordable, effective way for nonprofit or low-profit speakers to restrict children's access to such a broad, ill-defined category of material, the CDA has the effect of banning much speech from the Internet. [28] As civil liberties attorney Harvey Silvergate observed, "Overnight, the federal government transformed the newest and freest medium of communication into the most heavily censored." [
