[fintstone]

Originally posted by widebody911
Ok, so we have FISA wire taps, which can be obtained retroactively, so as not to impede the investigation of hot leads. These retro-warrants are apparently given out like candy - only handful had been turned down in 30 years.

The burning question is why GWB wasn't using them. Well, it seems he tried at first, but when a few of them were denied, he said f*ck it and back-doored the process.

Now, the new burning question is: why wouldn't the FISA court - who had been giving these out pretty liberally, deny or require modifications to the ones GWB was submitting? We'll probably never know, but my suspicion is that it wasn't terrorists that he was going after.
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The answer to your question is obvious to a person with more than half a brain. If you capture a terrorist with a laptop full of phone numbers, if any belong to known or suspected terrorists...a warrant is easy under FISA. If you find a new number of a person not already known as a terrorist...under FISA, you would probably not have enough evidence to get the warrant and monitor. The whole intent is to find unknown terrorists (sleepers)...not ones we already have significant evidence against.

Obviously only a few have been turned down previously because they were only used to monitor known spies/agents...not identify unknowns...like the liberals "modern minutemen" on Sept 11.