Dec 20 2005 01:46:47 PM EST
President Bush and Warrantless Wiretaps
Bruce Schneier has a great Salon column today on President Bush’s authorization of the NSA to engage in domestic wiretapping without seeking court approval:
Most likely, Bush wanted a whole new surveillance paradigm. You can think of the FBI’s capabilities as “retail surveillance”: It eavesdrops on a particular person or phone. The NSA, on the other hand, conducts “wholesale surveillance.” It, or more exactly its computers, listens to everything.
Dec 20 2005 04:29:14 PM EST
Comment by: Dave
Take a look at the article in the Wall Street Journal instead. It is far more comprehensive on the subject including:
“In Re: Sealed Case, the 2002 opinion by the special panel of appellate judges established to hear FISA appeals. In its per curiam opinion, the court noted that in a previous FISA case (U.S. v. Truong), a federal “court, as did all the other courts to have decided the issue, held that the President did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information.” And further that, “We take for granted that the President does have that authority and, assuming that is so, FISA could not encroach on the President’s constitutional power.”
and
“The two district court judges who have presided over the FISA court since 9/11 also knew about them.”
There is no new paradigm. There is no illegal wiretaps going on here. The Senators who raised the issue (and one who leaked the program) should be ashamed as they surely know this.
Jan 11 2006 04:09:53 PM EST
Comment by: Kathryn Cramer
With this subject in mind take a read through my comment section interrogation of Jack Idema fandom: Looking for a Few Bad Apples. The truly delightful thing about the right-wing position that what Bush has done is entirely legal and justified is thaht these people are deeply in denial about the extent to which they themselves can be, and perhaps are being, monitored.