The law is saying that the President may ONLY authorize wiretaps without a warrant for a period of 15 days following the declaration of war. Outside of that window, the wiretap is illegal. Ergo the President broke the law.

 

Actually, no!

Again, per the link you provided...

As long as the AG gives the thumbs up its all good!

 

Actually it's not that simple! You missed the rest of the code....

The attorney general can't just give a thumbs up. The attorney general certifies that the wiretap is only for foreign nationals or foreign entities. The right to privacy (reasonable search and seizure) for American citizens still holds.

 

Also, the NSA isn't chartered for domestic surveillance, which makes the whole thing a little more suspect. I don't see why the CIA or FBI wasn't in charge of this.

 

What is not known is whether not the people in the US that were part of this were citizens or aliens. What is known is that the authorizations were for calls to or from foreign countries. This was not used to tap calls between two US citizens in LA and NY. Because this was foreign to domestic or domestic to foreign surveillance is the reason it fell under the NSA.

Kestrel, I read almost the whole thing. So far there is nothing in there, coupled with the information that is currently available, that says President Bush or the NSA broke the law.

I know you guys hate President Bush and oppose everything he does but right now you are grasping at straws.

 

From the Wikipedia article on the NSA: "...the NSA's United States Signals Intelligence Directive 18 (USSID 18) strictly prohibits the interception or collection of information about "...US persons, entities, corporations or organizations..." without explicit written legal permission from the Attorney General of the United States. The Supreme Court has ruled that intelligence agencies cannot conduct surveillance against American citizens."

So there you have it. The only time the NSA is allowed to spy on "US persons" is when the AG signs off on it. Still, given that the FBI is actually chartered for domestic investigations and is empowered to arrest criminals -- which the NSA is not -- I have to ask again: why was the NSA doing this? What else is there that we don't know?

I don't oppose everything he does; just the stuff he does when he's lying, or going to war based on a lie, or taking a huge dump on the constitution, or limiting my freedom, or passing bad but politically expedient legislation, or limiting the freedoms of others, or fellating big corporations, or... umm... well I'm definitely not a fan, is all.

And I can't understand why you still like him so much. I honestly don't get what he's doing that you're so thrilled with. You're from the "live free or die" state, aren't you? Isn't the civil libertarian inside you going crazy over all of the fascist, hypocritical shenanigans?

FYI, I'm not grasping at straws, and I'm definitely not the only person asking questions right now: http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ie...nG=Search+News

 

Simply put, freedom isn't free. I want a small government that is there to protect the country as a whole.

Again your first paragraph is stillbacking up my argument. We do not know if the surveillance was used against US citizens. We do know it was used against people inside the US. Not everyone in the US is a US citizen. Now if the NSA is monitoring a terrorist in a foreign country and that person calls someone in the US, be it a US citizen or not, I want my government to monitor that call. Why? I don't want my civil liberties infringed upon by some wack nut terrorist hell bent on getting his supposed 72 virgins when he blows himself up to kill innocent people.

It is very clear why the NSA is involved. The NSA covers foreign intelligence and these taps involved people outside this country. This should not be something that is difficult to understand, it is clear as day in black and white.

Civil liberties mean absolutely nothing if we cannot protect ourselves, and so far President Bush has been very clear and unwavering in his quest to protect this country, the people that live in it, and our way of life. This is why I like him so much. I do not fall for the liberal brainwash of slogans like "Bush lied, people died." Every piece of intelligence we had pre-Iraq said Saddam was a threat, our head of the CIA even called the intelligence a "slam dunk" on the eve of the Iraq invasion. I cannot fault a man for doing his best to rid the world of evil men when the intelligence at the time says to do it. Playing Monday morning quarterback is not a game I play.

I disagree with some of the things that President Bush does, like this weak kneed immigration policy. But he has so far put forth a plan to keep us safe, pro-actively persue terrorists and those that harbor and support them, and do it on their soil not ours. From the mud that liberals throw, to a press that is against him, and sagging poll numbers he has stuck to doing what he feels is the right thing for this country. So what is some people got their bags searched in NYC as they went into the subway post the London Bombings, they lived right. If my bag has to be searched so we can catch a terrorist suicide bomber and I get to go home to my wife and son then that is a win for the US. When we start worrying about individual civil liberties and not the civil liberties of the masses then the terrorists have effectively used our system against us and they have won.

 

I'm not arguing the Bush thing actually. If the monitoring is only for foreign nationals, then I'm cool with it. However, I wouldn't be surprised at all if US citizens are included in this.

I'm just stating my belief that US citizens should retain their right to privacy, among others, even in light of the "war" on terror. My understanding of your position is that you wouldn't have a problem with the goverment tapping a citizen's phone unawares so long as it's in the name of "national security".

 

I agree that US citizens are afforded certain rights with privacy being one of them. I enjoy my right to privacy as much as the next American and do not think it should be infringed upon...but there are exceptions. If a foreign person that is being monitored for terrorism or terrorist activities is calling you on a regular basis, or you are calling them on a regular basis, that is sufficient cause to me for the government to listen in on your conversations. If you are just exchanging falafel recipes then the government should get out, but they need the ability to atleast listen to what is going on to determine if there is a threat. I do not want the government tapping phones simply for the sake of national security, there has to be probable cause. And with President Bush authorizing this use only 30 times over the past few years when there are probably millions of international phone calls in the US daily that is a very small ammount and shows a restraint on the use of that power.

 

'Warrantless' searches not unprecedented

It appears that Presidential precedent is with President Bush on this issue as both Presidents Carter and Clinton used these same types of searches...only this time it was against domestice American citizens.