When you say you care more about protecting US interests than making sure the president gets warrants, what the hell else am I supposed to interpret your post to say? You're advocating steamrolling civil liberties to "protect" the citizenry, period. Because getting warrants AFTER THE FACT interferes with getting the job done (i.e. getting wiretaps) Um, so? I didn't realize that civil liberties only applied in cases of peacetime. More emotional appeal garbage from you, color me shocked. HOW DOES GETTING WARRANTS AFTER THE FACT INTERFERE WITH GETTING THE JOB DONE HOW? HOW? HOW? I swear, it's like talking to a ****ing wall. Because you're strawmanning my and everybody else's arguments in every single post you make, saying that we care more about "coddling terrorists" instead of "getting the job done". Or you're playing dumb, I can't tell. Because he is hiding something by not getting warrants. By not getting warrants, he can wiretap anybody he wants, including people who don't pose a threat to the United States. The warrant process is there so courts can ensure that the people he wiretaps do, in fact, pose a threat to the US and merit being wiretapped. You're the one defending the trampling of constitutional rights, not me.
Okay, giddy. So far we have zero explanations from the admin or any of its official defenders, even after a congressional hearing, as to why warrants from a secret court would in any way compromise our ability to do every single thing possible to fight terrorism. In fact, Bush did go to FISA for many warrants -- were those warrants somehow less important? Like, would it have been okay with Bush for those warrants to have been leaked to Al Qaeda? Anyway, zero from official sources and two from BBS members. Let's keep track of these. I'll start. 1. Jorge says we shouldn't issue warrants because when we served them to the terrorists it would tip them off. 2. giddyup thinks we might have Al Qaeda allies on the FISA court. If either of those is true (number one is obviously just a hilarious case of Jorge not knowing what he's talking about and number two is one of the more far-fetched conspiracy theories to come down the pike in recent years), yes, I agree that seeking warrants would compromise our security. If neither of the above explanations is true, we still have no reason whatsoever for Bush not to get the warrants and the refusal to get them still has nothing to do with security. That's why surrender's going nuts trying to discuss this with you, giddyup. Apart from the crazy theory about Al Qaeda spies on the FISA court (How do we know there aren't any in NSA, by the way? Pretty scary!), we have heard no reason why not getting warrants helps us catch terrorists. Even so, you and Bush and the rest continue to say he's going around the warrant process to catch terrorists. It's a completely dishonest argument set up only to frame his going around the law as strong on national security and those of us who are mad that he circumvented it weak on security. That's a lie and I asked you for your theory so you would stop repeating the lie. If you're sticking with the spies on the FISA court angle, okay. Then you're not lying, you're just touched in the head.
surrender: Small correction. It came out recently that NSA can actually wait up to a year (not just three days) to retroactively obtain a warrant in extreme cases. Every single conversation with a suspected terrorist would qualify for this exception. So it's not three days, it's a year. Red tape indeed.
I never said that. Let me know when and if you want to continue discussing this. There's no point in going ahead if all you are going to do is mock my position.... goodnight.
<b>surrender When you say you care more about protecting US interests than making sure the president gets warrants, what the hell else am I supposed to interpret your post to say? You're advocating steamrolling civil liberties to "protect" the citizenry, period.</b> Steamrolling? Indeed. <b> Because getting warrants AFTER THE FACT interferes with getting the job done (i.e. getting wiretaps) </b> Well there is potentially some problem there OR we have a patently dishonest president. You take one side and I take another. <b>Um, so? I didn't realize that civil liberties only applied in cases of peacetime. More emotional appeal garbage from you, color me shocked.</b> You are the one hyperventilating. "Steamrolling" et al... <b>HOW DOES GETTING WARRANTS AFTER THE FACT INTERFERE WITH GETTING THE JOB DONE HOW? HOW? HOW? I swear, it's like talking to a ****ing wall.</b> I've given hypothetical answers. None of us here know all the issues or the complexities. Whatever I say, you don't like... <b>Because you're strawmanning my and everybody else's arguments in every single post you make, saying that we care more about "coddling terrorists" instead of "getting the job done". Or you're playing dumb, I can't tell.</b> Why is that necessarily "strawmanning?" <b>Because he is hiding something by not getting warrants. By not getting warrants, he can wiretap anybody he wants, including people who don't pose a threat to the United States. The warrant process is there so courts can ensure that the people he wiretaps do, in fact, pose a threat to the US and merit being wiretapped.</b> Don't the evidence of the wiretaps constitute the evidence in question? <b>You're the one defending the trampling of constitutional rights, not me.</b> Again witht the "trampling..." My righrts are A-OK...
I added a paragraph to my above post which you might also find to be mocking. I really don't mean it that way. I'm just exasperated that anyone would continue to defend this program as important to our security when no one has provided even a plausible theory as to how that would be so. Okay, you didn't say specifically that there were spies on the FISA court. You said you didn't trust the bureaucracy not to leak. But that "bureaucracy" is the FISA court and leaking in this case would be treason. And not only that, but it is a secret court set up specifically to handle sensitive intelligence matters. So what am I missing? If you're not saying there might be AQ spies on the FISA court (and you certainly seemed to imply that was what was meant when you brought up KGB in CIA), what were you saying? I am genuinely confused.
If you can seek warrants retroactively, how does that prevent the government from wiretapping whoever they want. They could wiretap a political opponent, get what they wanted, then seek a warrant retroactively. The warrant gets denied, the information becomes inadmissable, and the government now has the information they wanted anyway. It is hard to enforce any penalties when you have told them that they can wiretap first and seek the warrant later, otherwise no one would use that power for fear that one of their retroactive warrant requests might be denied. The who system is set up to allow unchecked wiretapping, so bypassing the system hardly seems different. Instead they should have a judge on staff everywhere they are doing these wiretaps so he can rubber stamp them as they come along. There will still be no real oversight, but there would also be no scandal.
I basically agree with you, SM. But I also agree that 9/11 changed everything and shined a serious light in our beds. We absolutely do need to do every single thing possible to prevent attacks against Americans. But we're not going to have a judge sitting around whenever the NSA gets a tip. That's exactly why the three day period was created and then later extended to a year in special circumstances. Yes, if the NSA decides, at the president's direction, to wiretap someone that might not pass muster for a warrant and the warrant is later thrown out, the spying (and the damage to that person maybe) has been done. But with the oversight of the warrant system, the American people would know that the White House had done so. They would also know if Bush or the NSA had behaved badly or even criminally by spying on people he or they had no justification for spying on. That's the point of the FISA law and it's the reason Congress rejected entreaties to change it when lobbied by the Bush admin. Under Bush's current program, he could spy on people our courts would never approve warrants for and we'd never know. In fact, given that it's gone on for years now, he may have already done so and, if so, we just wouldn't know about it. I'm not saying he has, I'm saying that's why the warrants are required. And that's also why Bush's program is against the law.
Don't let <b>your</b> exasperation get the best of you... Since when do we have the right to have our knowledge base on a par with the administration? I think I provided a <b>plausible</b> explanation. I can't detail it because i don't know the personnel set-up of the FISA court and I don't know for sure that I believe it. You asked for a theory and I provided one. However, I don't think there is a crooked judge atop the bench! Are there clerks? Reverse wiretapping? LOL. Again, our enemies are not fearful of treason. If they were, they wouldn't be our enemy. If you are trying to get me to expound on a conspiracy, I won't because I don't have one fleshed out. I don't even believe in any one in particular. Your confusion is of your own making. Your side prefers to run with the story that the president just feels it is his right to trample the checks and balances while I prefer to believe something other as he strives <b>successfully</b> to defend our nation and our people from another 9/11. End of story.
Do you just go <b>looking</b> for trouble? All I'm saying is that there must be a reason for it. Just because you and I don't know what it is doesn't make it an administration intent upon trampling our system of checks and balances just for the sake of doing that alone.
That's funny, I am talking about FREEDOM myself. It apparently has to be said again since people like you ignore the facts, but nobody is arguing that Bush and the NSA should not tap suspected terrorists. We are arguing that he should get a court order in the secret court set up for such warrants. Why is it so much to ask for this president to simply follow the law? Yes, there are people like that, but we need to find them within the bounds of the laws we have set up. There is no barrier between finding these people and following the law. Those two ideals are not mutually exclusive.
So, breaking the law is now "abridg[ing] the bureaucratic red tape." Bush is breaking the laws he is sworn to uphold and you call it "abridg[ing] the bureaucratic red tape." And yet after 1978, no president has felt it necessary to "abridge the bureaucratic red tape" by ignoring the FISA requirement to get a warrant. Do you really think that al-Quaeda has the same kind of size and organization that the KGB did?
Okay, why don't you just have your taxes prepared and <b>just</b> send in the appropriate check without your appropriately completed and signed Form 1040 and let's find out if you have broken the law. It's a freaking piece of paper. Since 1978, huh? Was there a credible threat? Maybe if Clinton had treated the bomber of the Towers as terrorists rather than criminals...
The bomber of the towers was sent to justice. Has the same happened to Bin Laden? The Blind Sheik who was the mastermind of that is sitting locked up tight in cell. Bin Laden is on the loose, and the leader of a feared terror organization. I don't really see any point in complaining about the job Clinton did in those regards.
If there is a reason for it, the administration should give it. The American govt. has never worked on the principle that the executive branch can claim there is a reason, never explain it, and then do whatever they want with no oversight, or regardless of the constitution.
The President has said that is his right, and he has given no reasoning for it. So our "side" is basing our arguments on actual events. You are basing yours on guesses, and rationalizations. If there is a reason not to use the FISA court, he can ask congress to amend the law. But there must be some checks and balances. As far as successfully defending our nation against another 9/11... There is no evidence that warrantless wiretaps have in anyway helped in that effort.
