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Supreme Court, Piss Off!

quote:

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration has agreed to shift course and let a secret but independent panel of federal judges oversee the government's controversial domestic spying program. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court will have final say in approving wiretaps on communications involving people with suspected terror links, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Wednesday in a letter to the leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Since Jan. 10, when the court began overseeing the program, at least one request has been approved to monitor communications of a person believed to be linked to al-Qaida or an associated terror group. In his letter to Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Arlen Specter, R-Pa., Gonzales wrote that "any electronic surveillance that was occurring as part of the Terrorist Surveillance Program will now be conducted subject to the approval of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court." The Bush administration secretly launched the Terrorist Surveillance Program in 2001 to monitor international phone calls and e-mails to or from the United States involving people suspected by the government of having terrorist links. Gonzales said Bush would not reauthorize the program. The shift in oversight means that all wiretaps or other eavesdropping tools by the federal government must be approved by court order. Previously, the program allowed investigators to spy without a warrant _ resulting in widespread criticism from lawmakers and others who questioned the legality. "The issue has never been whether to monitor suspected terrorists but doing it legally and with proper checks and balances to prevent abuses," Leahy, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said Wednesday in welcoming the change. "Providing efficient but meaningful court review is a major step toward addressing those concerns." The turnaround came after more than a year of stubborn insistence by the White House that oversight by the secret court was not required by law and, in fact, would be a hindrance to stopping terrorists. The FISA court was established in the late 1970s to review requests for warrants to conduct surveillance inside the United States. Bush has maintained that the warrantless surveillance program's existence was "fully consistent with my constitutional responsibilities and authorities," and has said he would continue to reauthorize it "for as long as our nation faces a continuing threat from al-Qaida and related groups." He has said circumventing the FISA court "enables us to move faster and quicker." On Wednesday, the White House said it is satisfied with the new guidelines to address administration officials' concerns about national security. "The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has put together its guidelines and its rules and those have met administration concerns about speed and agility when it comes to responding to bits of intelligence where we may to be able to save American lives," White House press secretary Tony Snow said. Snow said he could not explain why those concerns could not have been addressed before the program was started. He said the president will not reauthorize the present program because the new rules will serve as guideposts. A federal judge in Detroit last August declared the program unconstitutional, saying it violates the rights to free speech and privacy and the separation of powers. In October, a three-judge panel of the Cincinnati-based appeals court ruled that the administration could keep the program in place while it appeals the Detroit decision. Additionally, the Justice Department's inspector general is investigating the agency's use of information gathered in the spying program. In testimony last fall in front of the Senate panel, FBI Director Robert Mueller said he was not allowed to discuss classified details that could show whether it has curbed terrorist activity in the United States. Congressional intelligence committees have already been briefed on the court's orders, Gonzales said in his letter. It was sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee the day before he is set to testify before the panel, which oversees the Justice Department. Some Democrats said the change still may not go far enough. "While this may be a step in the right direction, it should not deflect the attention of the American people or the Congress from seeking answers about the current and past operation of this program," said House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich.

SOURCE

Wow... Just... Holy Shit. I have no words that truly express my deep concern for where our nation is headed. The Supreme Court and the Supreme Court alone should say what is and what isn't constitutional when it comes to surveillance in our own country. A court that meets the concerns of the Bush Administration? That's scary.

Down with Bush. Down with his whole bullshit administration. It's going to take YEARS for a democratic administration (Hopes for '08 ) to undo the shit that he's done to our country.

^

I bet that is just enough for the government to snoop in my computer.

Re: Supreme Court, Piss Off!

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Originally posted by Marc Summers SOURCE Wow... Just... Holy Shit. I have no words that truly express my deep concern for where our nation is headed. The Supreme Court and the Supreme Court alone should say what is and what isn't constitutional when it comes to surveillance in our own country. A court that meets the concerns of the Bush Administration? That's scary. Down with Bush. Down with his whole bullshit administration. It's going to take YEARS for a democratic administration (Hopes for '08 ) to undo the shit that he's done to our country. ^ I bet that is just enough for the government to snoop in my computer.

LOL!!!!!

dude, your like 30 years behind the curve.

in fact, youve got all backwards with this story.

Re: Supreme Court, Piss Off!

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Originally posted by Marc Summers The Supreme Court and the Supreme Court alone should say what is and what isn't constitutional when it comes to surveillance in our own country.

yeah, that is so profoundly wrong i'm surprised you are an American.

it's the Congress that decides what is Constitutional.

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Originally posted by Marc Summers I bet that is just enough for the government to snoop in my computer.

wtf does that have to do with Bush's domestic surveilence program?

Re: Re: Supreme Court, Piss Off!

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Originally posted by Q5echo yeah, that is so profoundly wrong i'm surprised you are an American. it's the Congress that decides what is Constitutional.

The Supreme Court has EVERYTHING to do with the constitution. Not the interpretation of the document itself, but the decision that was made by the supreme court, is guided by the constitution.

ACLU v. NSA

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_wa...nce_controversy

http://www.aclu.org/safefree/nsaspying/index.html

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The state secrets privilege, outlined by the Supreme Court in a 1953 case (UNITED STATES v. REYNOLDS), permits the government to derail a lawsuit that might otherwise lead to the disclosure of military secrets.

http://news.com.com/AT38T+sued+over..._3-6033501.html

The supreme court's rulings over the years have settled issues that have been in open to the interpretation of lower courts in the past.

I don't know where the hell you've been, buddy.

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wtf does that have to do with Bush's domestic surveilence program?

It was an exaggeration, get a clue.

Here's another one, fucknut.

HAMDAN V. RUMSFELD

If there was a special court that met the concerns of the bush administration in regard to TORTURING FOR INTERROGATION, there wouldn't be a case like this...

Re: Re: Re: Supreme Court, Piss Off!

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Originally posted by Marc Summers I don't know where the hell you've been, buddy.

wow your one of those people that can never admit they are wrong aren't you?

do you still stand by this statement?

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The Supreme Court and the Supreme Court alone should say what is and what isn't constitutional when it comes to surveillance in our own country.

if you do stand by it consider yourself a fascist.

wat do the lower courts have to say about Constituionality? according to your logic, nothing. the SCOTUS is the final word but i'll be damned if they are the only word, that includes the other two branches of Government. which, BTW, those branches retain the ability to change the Constitution altogether.

Congress enacted the Foriegn Intelligence Survelence Act in 1978 not the Supreme Court.

the two examples you gave do not challange FISA's Constitutionality. they challenge the Executive's interpretation of FISA. well, one does Hamdan has nothing to do with this.

you have Bush Derangement Syndrome. it's very infectcious if you're not intellectually honest.

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Originally posted by Marc Summers Here's another one, fucknut. HAMDAN V. RUMSFELD If there was a special court that met the concerns of the bush administration in regard to TORTURING FOR INTERROGATION, there wouldn't be a case like this...

this has bee threaded before. it sure as hell doen't belong here.

Re: Re: Re: Supreme Court, Piss Off!

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Originally posted by Marc Summers It was an exaggeration, get a clue.

oh right, right. i didn't see the smiley.

...and you still have interpreted the article all bass-ackwards

Re: Re: Re: Re: Supreme Court, Piss Off!

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Originally posted by Q5echo you have Bush Derangement Syndrome. it's very infectcious if you're not intellectually honest.

You don't get it, do you? This has nothing to do with bush. It has to do with his administration (Which includes him, NO WAY!) using another court to enable them to easily obtain information without proper warrant. I'd say the same exact thing if it was a democratic administration. Allowing for "Speed and agility" in warranting surveillance means less and less information and EVIDENCE is needed.

What is wrong with you?

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Supreme Court, Piss Off!

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Originally posted by Marc Summers What is wrong with you?

your entire premise of this thread.

what has happened (and is explicitely explained in the article you posted) is that Bush has RELENQUISHED his authority of the Terrorist Surveilence Progam oversight back to the FISA courts, ok? since 9/11/2001 he has reviewed his oversight authority every 45 days with a vote of the Senate Intel Committee. now that the Donkey party has the majority in Congress he does not feel he has the support to renew it every 45 days. for the last two years the Justice Dept. has been working with FISA to speed up the efficiency to which warrants are dissminated by the court. prior to 9/11 Bush contended that FISA was too antiquated to deal with multiple fast moving intel so with select bi-partisaned Congressional authorization evrey 45 days he let the DOJ and other agencies manage oversight of the TSP.

this court [FISA] has had the authority you were complaining about for almost 30 years now.

now if you want to debate the Constitutionality of his authority thats all fine and well and MisterOpus has a real long thread about it around here somewhere.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Supreme Court, Piss Off!

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Originally posted by Marc Summers I'd say the same exact thing if it was a democratic administration.

I was just hoping everyone would remember this little gem while bagging on the new boss, same as the old boss.

quote:

Moreover, the Clinton administration is -- as the ACLU's Laura Murphy recently told the National Law Journal -- "the most wire-tap-friendly administration in history."

SOURCE

that was 2002, now it's Bush, next term: Obama?

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Supreme Court, Piss Off!

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Originally posted by Rhuckus I was just hoping everyone would remember this little gem while bagging on the new boss, same as the old boss. SOURCE that was 2002, now it's Bush, next term: Obama?

your source is another forum?

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Supreme Court, Piss Off!

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Originally posted by Q5echo your entire premise of this thread. what has happened (and is explicitely explained in the article you posted) is that Bush has RELENQUISHED his authority of the Terrorist Surveilence Progam oversight back to the FISA courts, ok?

This is correct, Marc. I think you're confusing the FISA courts with SCOTUS.

quote:

for the last two years the Justice Dept. has been working with FISA to speed up the efficiency to which warrants are dissminated by the court.

Are you sure about that? I haven't run across any evidence that points to DOJ working with FISA courts at all. As far as I've seen, the 72 hour retroactive search warrant clause was still in full effect, at least that was the complaint given. Do you have evidence that depicts FISA judges complying with breaking this clause?

quote:

prior to 9/11 Bush contended that FISA was too antiquated to deal with multiple fast moving intel so with select bi-partisaned Congressional authorization evrey 45 days he let the DOJ and other agencies manage oversight of the TSP.

There was nothing bipartisaned about this and you know that - Cheney did indeed tell Rockefeller of the program, but Rockefeller was sworn by classified sensitive information not to reveal any details of the meeting given. I believe I outlined that previously.

Furthermore, let's keep in mind what was also at play here - yes Bush no longer had a lapdog Congress that held absolutely NO oversight whatsoever on this program (along with a myriad of other programs and policies), but a federal judge also ruled that Bush violated the Constitution with this program, and an appellate court was about to hold arguments on that decision.

It seems a pattern emerges every time this Administration is about to face consequences for their misconduct - it appears that they continue doing whatever the fuck they want to do up to that point, then they stop doing it right to the point where their feet get held to the fire and then slide around and find another way to do it. This occurred when SCOTUS was about to rule on the legality of Jose Padilla being detained. Remember that? At the last moment, DOJ transferred him to a criminal court and charged him, and then turned around and told SCOTUS that now their questions were "moot":

http://select.nytimes.com/search/re...DA80994DD404482

When SCOTUS ruled in Hamdi to give Hamdi an actual venue to charge him with a crime so DOJ could prove his guilt, they let this supposed dangerous terrorist go free instead:

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/10/14/hamdi/

And I must disagree with you about the criticism of procedural rules this Administration and its supporters had on the FISA courts for warrants and eavesdropping. There was ALSO a great amount, if not a greater amount of criticism coming from you folks about the substantive requirement under FISA for obtaining a warrant in the first place, i.e. the FISA requirement showing "probable cause" rather than the more loosely defined "reasonable basis". Here's current CIA director and former NSA director Michael Hayden outlining this complaint nicely:

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HAYDEN: The president's authorization allows us to track this kind of call more comprehensively and more efficiently. The trigger is quicker and a bit softer than it is for a FISA warrant, but the intrusion into privacy is also limited: only international calls and only those we have a reasonable basis to believe involve al Qaeda or one of its affiliates. . . . QUESTION: Just to clarify sort of what's been said, from what I've heard you say today and an earlier press conference, the change from going around the FISA law was to -- one of them was to lower the standard from what they call for, which is basically probable cause to a reasonable basis; and then to take it away from a federal court judge, the FISA court judge, and hand it over to a shift supervisor at NSA. Is that what we're talking about here -- just for clarification? GEN. HAYDEN: You got most of it right. The people who make the judgment, and the one you just referred to, there are only a hand. http://www.globalsecurity.org/intel...60123-dni01.htm

He also said this a month earlier:

quote:

GENERAL HAYDEN: One, the whole key here is agility. And let me re-trace some grounds I tried to suggest earlier. FISA was built for persistence. FISA was built for long-term coverage against known agents of an enemy power. And the purpose involved in each of those -- in those cases was either for a long-term law enforcement purpose or a long-term intelligence purpose. This program isn't for that. This is to detect and prevent. And here the key is not so much persistence as it is agility. It's a quicker trigger. It's a subtly softer trigger. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/rele...20051219-1.html

This was not simply because the process of obtaining warrants was too cumbersome and long, but because "probable cause" was not enough for them to get what they wanted.

And let's all keep in mind that this little barrier was introduced to be broken down (i.e. probable cause to "reasonable suspicion") by Republican Senator DeWine in 2002:

quote:

to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 to modify the standard of proof for issuance of orders regarding non-United States persons from probable cause to reasonable suspicion. . . . http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2002_cr/s2659.html

And Congress refused to enact that change, as well as this Administration stating it likely didn't need it to change either, but I believe I addressed that before too.

Regardless, much will be answered with Gonzales' testimony today on this program. I'll save some of the most obvious questions about the legality of this program until after Gonzales testifies, but I think Mark Levin of the National Review hits on the most glaring obstacle:

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Is there no principle subject to negotiation? Is there no course subject to reversal? For the Bush administration to argue for years that this program, as operated, was critical to our national security and fell within the president's Constitutional authority, to then turnaround and surrender presidential authority this way is disgraceful. The administration is repudiating all the arguments it has made in testimony, legal briefs, and public statements. This goes to the heart of the White House's credibility. How can it cast away such a fundamental position of principle and law like this? http://levin.nationalreview.com/pos...jE2NmQxZWQxYjI=

And he's not the only avid Bush supporter questioning the most obvious point. Here's Captain Ed:

http://www.captainsquartersblog.com...ives/008945.php

Haven't been over to Powerline or Malkinblog yet, but I think they and all the other Bush supporters should have these initial questions in mind as well coming into today's testimony. Let's see what our AG has to say.

I stand corrected on my previous claim/question on Gonzales coming to agreement terms with FISA over the past two years. As he mentioned in his testimony today, he spent the past two years (supposedly) coming up with a means of working(circumventing) FISA with one judge on that court. As it stated in today's paper:

quote:

The Justice Department said it had worked out an �innovative� arrangement with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that provided the �necessary speed and agility� to provide court approval to monitor international communications of people inside the United States without jeopardizing national security. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/18/w...gewanted=1&_r=2

And this part in the story is revealing, though not surprising at all:

quote:

The administration said it had briefed the full House and Senate Intelligence Committees in closed sessions on its decision. But Representative Heather A. Wilson, Republican of New Mexico, who serves on the Intelligence committee, disputed that, and some Congressional aides said staff members were briefed Friday without lawmakers present. Ms. Wilson, who has scrutinized the program for the last year, said she believed the new approach relied on a blanket, �programmatic� approval of the president�s surveillance program, rather than approval of individual warrants.

That REPUBLICAN Congresswoman goes on to make the point rather succinctly:

quote:

Administration officials �have convinced a single judge in a secret session, in a nonadversarial session, to issue a court order to cover the president�s terrorism surveillance program,� Ms. Wilson said in a telephone interview. She said Congress needed to investigate further to determine how the program is run.

Furthermore, Gonzales testimony so far was really fucking pathetic. Repeat and rinse the phrase: "We have been complying with FISA" or "We were lawful", and you've basically got his testimony so far. Jesus, talk about sidestepping. And of course he went into his basic, "I don't know and I'll look into that" bullshit routine, which often times he never does jack shit about looking into anything questioned. The nice thing is, he was called out on that bullshit line.

Feingold handed him his ass on he and Bush's propaganda bullshit with a simple question:

"do you know of any one in the country who opposed eavesdropping on terrorists?"

Gonzales went into denial (shock) and blamed blogs of all fucking people whom he was addressing with his asinine comments of dissenters helping the terrorists lines. Jesus, that's beyond the pale.

And what the fuck was up with Senator Hatch blowing smoke up Gonzales' ass on pornography? Jesus, let's try and steer that bus away from the obvious problems at hand, shall we?

It seems pretty obvious to me that Gonzales testimony will only add fuel to the needed fire to get to the bottom of this Administration's illegal wiretapping over the past 5 years, and rightfully so. Complying now and ending the 45 day check does not validate in any manner the illegality of this Adminstration's actions over the past 5 years. And what's more, this FISC agreement with the FISA judge will also be examined with extreme scrutiny as hopefully Congress can understand a bit more exactly the terms of the agreement given.

The investigation is not going away anytime soon.

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your source is another forum?

yeah, sorry about that. If you'd care to notice, the actual text comes from the Chatanooga Times or something, I didn't bother looking up the original because i'd already read it on Lexis earlier this year and just wanted to provide a warrant rather than hearsay. Clinton was no angel either, but that said, I have to admit that i'm shocked.

A nonadversarial secret session? sounds like advice and consent to me.

Let me guess what happens in the next secret session: Congress approves two way televisions, let's call them telescreens for fun, and encourages all of the citizens of this once great country to rally under the new banner of the homeland against East Asia and Eurasia. But we'd need an iconic leader, some great fatherly, or better yet, brotherly figure . . .

quote:

Originally posted by Rhuckus yeah, sorry about that. If you'd care to notice, the actual text comes from the Chatanooga Times or something, I didn't bother looking up the original because i'd already read it on Lexis earlier this year and just wanted to provide a warrant rather than hearsay. Clinton was no angel either, but that said, I have to admit that i'm shocked. A nonadversarial secret session? sounds like advice and consent to me. Let me guess what happens in the next secret session: Congress approves two way televisions, let's call them telescreens for fun, and encourages all of the citizens of this once great country to rally under the new banner of the homeland against East Asia and Eurasia. But we'd need an iconic leader, some great fatherly, or better yet, brotherly figure . . .

you cannot be so careless with sourcing your info. who wrote it, when they wrote it, etc. is so very important to the authenticity of the argument.

fair enough, but if you'd bother to look at the link rather than flame, you'd notice that everything is in there. If you're just too lazy to read it, that's fine, but don't wax illiterate and jump down my throat over it.

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