Quote:
Originally posted by fintstone
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.
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This is unknowable, but it is my belief that the FISA judges would have given W just about anything he needed in the way of warrants during the post-Sept 11 period. They don't want to be blamed for the next attack any more than the next guy.
A question for you guys who deflect the issue on this - you're saying that it's important to spy without going through the FISA mechanism for basically two reasons:
1) Speed (even though there's a retroactive period for FISA warrants)
2) The need for more latitude (ie FISA won't give you a warrant when you want to spy on someone).
I believe that everyone has the country's security in mind when they argue the above. So take yourself back to the legal discussions that W and his team MUST have had when they were considering doing this. Did they not consider what might happen if their non-FISA spying was discovered? That every potential terrorist would now have another legal means to defeat any conviction, and another way to tie up their case, delaying any testimony/bargaining?
This is all so crazy. WHY didn't W go through the existing procedure? No one has answered that.