I guess thes issue here just comes down to where one feels that we should draw the line on personal privacy. The current law sayss that its ok to do wiretaps if the FISA court approves it. Since there are provisions for retroactive filings and the court rarely disapproves of a request its main purpose in life is to provide some minimal amount of oversight. The point is to avoid blantant abuses of our survellence powers for petty, political, or personel reasons. A real good example woul be the Hover years at the FBI. If you feel that his use of the FBI's powers was appropriate, then you probably have not problem with with the administation's disregarding the law.

I don't see how the current law hinders these folks from doing their jobs. What it does do is discurrage abuses on the chance that someone would abuse this ability. I don't see any reason why the current law is limiting.

Here's a question I was thinking about on the way home. Where does your privacy end, legally?

If you are shouting from inside your home and someone outside hears you, is that considered an invasion of privacy? What about if you use your cell phone and thus broadcast your conversation over the air? What about if you use public telephone lines to transmit your private call?

I'm seriously curious on this, anyone have a clue?

No problem. Broadcasting leaves one susceptible to eavesdropping, either accidental or intentional. If your phones. for example are actually "tapped", then the individual or organization doing the tapping is doing it on purpose, and you do not suspect it. Common thought is that no information you wish to keep "private" should go over any "on air" communication system. That being said, even hard wiring can be "tapped", but that then becomes an invasion of privacy, akin to opening someone's mail which is actually a crime. One should assume that certain transactions such as bank accounts, purchases, credit card numbers, etc should be off-limits without the permission of the individual.

The individual has to be, in effect, "eternally vigilant", but cannot protect himself from organizations that clandestinely collect data using methods that the individual cannot detect. Worse, the individual does not know what purposes this information will be put to. Ask the Germans living in the old country in the late 30s/early 40s. Or citizens of the USSR.......

Pray we do not reach the poinmt where freedom is a myth and only a memory.

I agree, with one modification. We need to do more than "pray," we need to FIGHT for our freedoms, just like every generation of our forefathers did. We can't be passive. Freedom requires eternal vigilance.

What is dispiriting is that we have to take the fight to guys like Rick, who are seemingly reasonable, proud Americans. But there is some basic, core misunderstanding of what America stands for, and it pains me terribly to see it from people like him.

"If you have nothing to hide, what's the problem with letting the government watch your movements 24/7?"

"If you are not talking to terrorists, why not let the FBI secretly listen in to your phone calls?"

"If you are not doing things illegally, why not let the police search your person anytime they want without bothering to get a warrant?"

These kind of questions demonstrate a core misunderstanding of freedom.

The answer to each of these questions is very simple: "Because I don't. Because the government serves me, not the other way around. Because unless I invite them into my life or do something illegal, I am entitled to be left the fcuk alone." Period. End of Story.

They've been doing that here for a while now between the IPASS (electronic toll) stops. If you go between two tolls too fast, you get a ticket in the mail.

Social policy has derailed the reasoning for Bush's NSA & SWIFT surveillance on this thread.

Anticipating and stopping terrorist operations require intelligence and infiltration. Social policy in the US must become pragmatic.

The stark difference between US & British war policy is that the Brits use "reasonable suspicion" and we use "probable cause". The Brits have over 25yr fighting IRA terrorism. Guess what? The Crown won. Reason is that the public became accustomed to the measures necessary to prevent terrorist attack.

Clear lessons and obvious truths vs the British notion "a man's home is his castle" have struck a successful balance in England. Eventually that will happen here.

Of course the ACLU, Communists, Anti-War, and just routine Bush haters will discount the British experience... until another catastrophic event.


And don't forget the Dems adopted campaign theme "culture of corruption".

Interesting that the Brits pretty much have every major city under 24 hour camera surveillance, part of the reason why they were able to track down the terrorists in their last major attack. Wonder how many times Rodeo's head would spin around on THAT one??

I guess we could just burn the Constitution and follow British law.

Typical lack of any substantive response from Rick.

And typical distortion from RoninLB: "Anticipating and stopping terrorist operations require intelligence and infiltration." All you do is argue against straw men, because you can't or won't address the real argument.

I and everyone else in this country wants "intelligence and infiltration." We DON'T want complete and absolute power in the executive to gather that intelligence by spying on Americans, with zero oversight, zero accountability, and in total, classified, go-to-jail-if-you-even-mention-the-program secrecy.

You're an intelligent guy. Finally got it?

I'm not saying that we should burn the Constitution. I'm simply suggesting that perhaps we need to consider the idea that we might need to do things differently in the US than we have done in the past.

Britain is very successful in combating terrorism, witness the recent bomb plot they busted up (how many American lives did they save?). Israel hasn't had a bomb go off on one of their airlines in quite a while, partly because they (GASP) use profiling.

The point is that many other countries in the world have security practices that would send the ACLU into seizures, yet their citizens are perfectly happy with them.

Is it going to take another few thousand dead American civilians for us to take this seriously?

Is any response that doesn't agree with you non-substantive?

My post was tongue in cheek, however I think there is a valid point to be made:

Why does the FISA court even exist? From what I can tell it provides a very minimal amount of oversight, essentially rubber stamps almost everything that comes through it. I think I recall hearing that they had only declined a handful of requests since the court began. So in non-lawyer terms, the court exists to make sure there is not a gross misuse of power.

So, if you take the fact that FISA is a rubber stamp court, then you must ask yourself why the administration decided to go around it. I can come up with two plausible reasons. Either the court is too cumbersome (from a paperwork standpoint or whatever) and the NSA felt that FISA was hindering their ability to catch terrorists OR NSA wanted to surveil people they knew wouldn't be approved by FISA so they decided to hell with it and went out on their own.

I think a much more interesting and helpful conversation would be to look at ways Congress might make the FISA system work better. To look at why the admin felt they needed to go around FISA and see if their concerns were valid or not. I just don't subscribe to the Rodeo hyperbole on this issue. It might be fun to think that George is sitting up at night cackling while he listens to Rodeo's cell phone conversation, but I just can't see that happening. Hell, I have a lot less on my plate than George does and I have absolutely no interest in what Rodeo talks about on the phone...

There are claims they "rubberstamp" everything, but is that what they're really doing, or are the cases brought forth worthy of the stamp and there is no wasting of time to bring things that are not valid of the rubberstamp? Is the reason to subvert this process is because there was no evidence to rubberstamp?

That's precisely right -- the FISA Court is there to ensure that there is not an executive misuse of power. It provides, at a minimum, a RECORD (secret, but a record nonetheless) of who is being spied on and why.

Is it "too cumbersome?"

First, the Federal District Judge that heard the case listened to the secret arguments and concluded there was no valid national security reason to bypass the court. So someone that has actually heard ALL the evidence concluded the FISA process was not "too cumbersome."

Secondly, democracy is cumbersome. The most efficient, streamlined system of government one can have is a dictatorship. No pesky Congress, no courts, no media. If you want freedom, you put up with checks and balances.

Finally, I don't think Bush or anyone else is staying up late listening to my calls. But I will fight for all I'm worth to make sure that they don't have the power to do that, should they so decide. Our system is built on the assumption that human beings will misuse power, not the other way around.

If you want to see how a process that relies on best case assumptions works out, look no further than Iraq.

Expect the best. Plan for the worst.

Ah, you are exactly correct, CC, however IF your idea that the NSA wasn't trying to surveil inappropriate targets in the first place is true, why are people so up in arms about them not going to FISA? If you look at it from a end product point of view, if the bad guy is surveilled and caught, then was the process wrong?

So, either FISA gives the NSA a very loose leash or the NSA is very good about selecting who it surveils.

Actually I don't think that is true. The article I read yesterday said that the administration lawyers are appealing the decision because they say that they have proof that the program is within executive priviledge, but to reveal said proof would damage national security.

The Federal judge ruled that she had seen enough evidence, even without the top secret stuff the government said they had, to rule that the program was unconstitutional.

So the Judge did not hear all the evidence.

Pretty good argument. You've heard it before:

"I could tell you why spying on Americans without a warrant is constitutional, but then I'd have to kill you."

Sorry, does not fly.

And to suggest that the executive branch of government can't trust the judiciary with classified information is just absurd. She heard all the evidence, and found that America does not have kings.

I understand and support our need to protect ourselves from terrorists. And I understand the very difficult "gray area" nature of many of these issues.

Having said that, I am virtually always going to be opposed to any and all intrusions on my personal freedoms, liberties and privacy and those of my fellow Americans. Bottom line. Some of you can just go ahead and take a position of support for these intrusions, with the belief they are necessary to "fight terrorism." I won't be in agreement with you. I will prefer to fight terrorism in ways that do not involve erosion of our freedoms. Indeed, it is hard for me to understand a thinking pattern that allows for those erosions. Feels to me just like we're giving up, and handing the nation over to the bad guys.

The problem with this is there is a "belief," if you will, that the NSA isn't trying to surveil inappropriate targets. I'm not too keen on 'belief" or "blind faith".....absolute power absolutely corrupts. If they really are surveil the bad guys, going to FISA would be no problem. I prefer oversight, not hope. Hell, I prefer oversight with everything....that's why people have bosses, SOX, etc.

I would speculate NSA is very good about selecting who it surveils WHEN it goes to FISA. It's when it doesn't go to FISA that makes me nervous.

Do you think that if you say it enough times it will become true??

On May 26, instead of responding to arguments attacking the legality of the NSA's eavesdropping program, the government filed for dismissal of the case. It cited the "U.S. military and state secrets privilege" and argued the government would not be able to defend the domestic spying program without disclosing classified information.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/08/17/domesticspying.lawsuit/index.html

Which is why the judge couldn't rule any other way. Based on what she had, she could not rule any other way. They can only rule on what they have.......