<p>Torture, Invasion of foreign country…</p>
<p>are we talking about GWB or SH?</p>
<p>“Driver and fundingfather, what does George Bush have to do before you no longer support him?”</p>
<p>i’d like to know as well!!! Please tell us!!!</p>
<p>i like the whole ‘weapons of mass destruction’ stunt. Where are they??? Oh, wait, they just admitted that they didnt find any. That’s not quite a minor detail. </p>
<p>Lets not forget that Bush’s approval rating is at a record low for both himself and for all other presidents in history. Just a little FYI.</p>
<p>Why does he even care about, no less need, the Patriot Act if he can make it up as he goes along?</p>
<p>There is a law that governs these things - the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. The wiretapping requires a warrant, which can be obtained through a secret application to a secret court especially set up to consider and grant such warrants. If there are wiretaps that are so important that they need to be renewed repeatedly by presidential order at 45 day intervals, then surely they are important enough to support a warrant. </p>
<p>The cool thing for law enforcement folks is that IF the Pres had decided to follow the law and seek warrants for all of the wiretaps, then anything that was picked up via surveillance would be ADMISSIBLE in a court of law and a criminal prosecution. </p>
<p>On the other hand… if plans to bomb a building are overheard via illegal, warrantless surveillance, then the evidence is inadmissible… worse, anything learned as a result of the initial information is likely to be excluded from evidence under the “fruit of the poisonous tree” doctrine. (If I learn from an illegal wiretap that the suspects have 10 tons of explosives stashed away in a warehouse, then I can’t get a warrant to search the warehouse because the first wiretap was illegal, etc.) </p>
<p>So by playing at being King or maybe Dictator of the World, Bush has pretty much destroyed the ability to actually use any evidence discovered to keep anyone in jail, at least through legal means. Is it any wonder that so many prosecutions of alleged spies or terrorists are ending in acquittals? </p>
<p>The problem is that it neither difficult nor time consuming to get a search warrant. Most warrants are granted with very little scrutiny, and with the representations of the people seeking the warrant taken at face value. That is, the very facts that Bush now claims supports his actions (“only to intercept the international communications of people inside the U.S. who have been determined to have “a clear link” to al-Qaida or related terrorist organizations”) – would easily support a warrant. So what is the one good reason that these folks have for bypassing the law and the warrant procedure? What are the 30 good reasons (since Bush says he has signed off on the reauthorizaitons 30 times)? </p>
<p>Sounds to me more likely that they have been doing a lot of fishing without much to show for it.</p>
<p>The issue really isn’t whether “he” saved American lives. I’d even be willing to give them the benefit of the doubt (though, given his track record, he’s made it awfully difficult.) The question is why he had to break the law to do so, or whether the law was preventing him from doing his job. Since he opposed the Patriot Act and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, it’s a little difficult to see the case, though I’m even willing to imagine that he actually changed his mind and put the old one in his back pocket. But if he thought the law was preventing him from protecting the American people, what exactly is it that prevented him from saying so?</p>
<p>Are these his ideas or the musings of his trusted advisors?</p>
<p>Calmom said: “So what is the one good reason that these folks have for bypassing the law and the warrant procedure?”</p>
<p>I’d really like to know this, too. Anyone?</p>
<p>
Who cares? The goal is not to prosecute so they can be released back into society. This isn’t a traffic stop, it’s war. The goal is to stop the needless loss of life. And by the way, who says a foreign terrorist invading our country has rights? In WWII, the country saw fit to intern Japanese Americans to reduce risk in time of war. Was it right? No. This is a much better solution. </p>
<p>How do you apply for a search warrant to scan thousands of internet messages and phone calls looking for keywords or phrases? If you understood the technology, you wouldn’t be having this conversation. Many of you have criticised our intelligence gathering related both to 9/11 and to Iraq. The next terrorist attack you will again be the vocal critics of the administration for not doing enough to protect the country. This is what it takes. The courts are still available. If a person is prosecuted and the courts throw out the evidence, so be it. We can and will deport the terrorist at least, and prevent the attack.</p>
<p>bandit_TX - you couldn’t have said it better - hard to believe that their hatred of Bush is such that they want to turn defense of our country into a legal proceeding.</p>
<p><a href=“http://dailykos.com/story/2005/12/17/141334/67[/url]”>http://dailykos.com/story/2005/12/17/141334/67</a></p>
<p>"A senior at UMass Dartmouth was visited by federal agents two months ago, after he requested a copy of Mao Tse-Tung’s tome on Communism called “The Little Red Book.”</p>
<p>Two history professors at UMass Dartmouth, Brian Glyn Williams and Robert Pontbriand, said the student told them he requested the book through the UMass Dartmouth library’s interlibrary loan program.</p>
<p>The student, who was completing a research paper on Communism for Professor Pontbriand’s class on fascism and totalitarianism, filled out a form for the request, leaving his name, address, phone number and Social Security number. He was later visited at his parents’ home in New Bedford by two agents of the Department of Homeland Security, the professors said.</p>
<p>The professors said the student was told by the agents that the book is on a “watch list,” and that his background, which included significant time abroad, triggered them to investigate the student further."</p>
<p>BigGreen, you’ve got the causality arrow reversed: we hate Bush because of the inept, foolish policies; we don’t attack Bush’s policies because we hate Bush. Might be hard for some veteran Clinton bashers to get the concept.</p>
<p>
That’s a very simple one. Start acting like the those on the left would have him behave and stop behaving like a president who takes seriously his vow to do everything possible to prevent a massive terrorist attack and I’ll stop supporting him.</p>
<p>Fear is an effective means of control…it’s working.</p>
<p>You would have said the same thing if someone started to connect the dots that led to 9/11, but without a complete picture, suggested that we take extraordinary security measures to prevent it from happening. Instead it’s far easier for the left to wait for something bad to happen and then point fingers about “why didn’t Bush prevent this from happening?”</p>
<p>Hmm, connect the dots, connect the dots. Gee, it’s a shame that nobody presented a briefing memo to the president in 2001 saying stuff like: “Bin Laden determined to attack inside the U.S.” and “al Qaeda has been considering ways to hijack American planes”. Oh, wait - they did. Well, as Razorsharp (?) points out, the Bush Administration only had eight months to consider possible threats to the US, and probably just hadn’t gotten around to considering that the guys who bombed the World Trade Center before, and were determined to attack inside the US, and were talking about hijacking planes… well, like they keep saying (is this the current staple of right-wing blogs and radio shows?) it’s hard to connect those darn dots…
Hey, I’ve got an idea - let’s blame it on Clinton!</p>
<p>Plenty of blame to go around, so how about we let them fix it…</p>
<p>Some of us still have a sentimental attachment to the US Constitution.</p>
<p>I don’t have a very well developed opinion here, but for what its worth,
I have known quite a few people who lost friends, loved ones and family during the terror attacks of 9-11, and yet, surprisingly, I have never personally met anyone who has had their rights violated for checking out a book, neither have I met anyone who has ever met anyone who has
though, as I am also given to sentimentality, Im sure such abuse must be rampant and insidious based on the righteous and strained outcry dished out here on the fly.</p>
<p>I find nothing in the Constitution about either telephones or the internet. When they search your home without a warrant (or sieze it, which the Supreme Court now allows), I’ll be indignate with you. When you put it out in the public, I know of no guarantees of privacy. I’m much more alarmed about the government taking my private property for development than anyone listening to me talk to my aged mother on the phone.</p>
<p>Try the 4th amendment. The courts figured out a long time ago that it applies to phones.</p>
<p>Try this:</p>
<p>The constitition says that Congress makes laws.</p>
<p>Congress passed a law in 1978.</p>
<p>The law is called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. (FISA)</p>
<p>The law makes it a CRIME for government officials to engage in electronic eavesdropping by any means other than that which is specifically authorized by statute. The law also specifies that the criminal wiretapping statutes and the FISA are the EXCLUSIVE legal means by which the goverment may engage in wiretapping.</p>
<p>There is no president-can-order-it exception to the law. </p>
<p>FISA sets up a secret court and wiretaps can be applied for secretly, so there is no danger of any secrets being revealed when a gov. agent seeks a warrant. At the outside, it might take about 10 hours for someone to get a warrant in a hurry, assuming you have to get together a bunch of paperwork and wake up a judge. </p>
<p>There is no record nor claim that any necessary warrant has ever been denied or turned down by the FISA court. The thing with 9/11 is that after Massaoui was apprehended, the Ascroft justice department refused to seek a FISA warrant after local agents asked for permission to go get so they could search his computer. It isn’t that the courts would have said no; its that they never bothered to ask. </p>
<p>The Patriot Act doesn’t authorise secret wiretaps or change FISA – FISA is still the law. </p>
<p>You can argue all you want, but you argue from ignorance. And as they say, ignorance of the law is no excuse. </p>
<p>And the Supreme Court does NOT allow the government to seize your property secretly or without notice or without court protection. What they have allowed is that the property can be taken via eminent domain, which IS in the Constitution, and which is protected by the due process clause, which means that the government needs to PAY for property it takes.</p>