quote:Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales appeared to suggest yesterday that the Bush administration's warrantless domestic surveillance operations may extend beyond the outlines that the president acknowledged in mid-December.
In a letter yesterday to senators in which he asked to clarify his Feb. 6 testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Gonzales also seemed to imply that the administration's original legal justification for the program was not as clear-cut as he indicated three weeks ago.
This could get interesting.
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posted
The last sentence should be put into a little more context. "Clear-cut" doesn't reference the strength of the legal argument, but rather whether the legal argument being put forth today was fully articulated before the program started.
As to the hints, they do suggest something else. I wish I could see the transcript - it's not clear from what's quoted that the something else is electronic surveillance. If the question that evoked Gonzales's answer used the more generic term spying, then he could be referring to a lot of different activities, not necessarily at the NSA.
Even electronic surveillance could refer to things other than wiretaps - such as frequency scanning, video surveillance, or actual physical bugging.
Or, obviously, it could mean other forms of wiretapping.
Quick other note: we have a good reminder from Clinton's CIA chief that the Bush administration did not invent the concept that some wiretaps intercepting some U.S. calls are not covered by FISA. While this might not affect anyone's opinion as to the constitutionality of the program, it adds one more piece of evidence that this program is not so clearly illegal as to warrant impeachment.
I wouldn't be surprised if the Hamdi decision didn't suggest the force authorization justification.
On a further note, Congress absolutely has the power to make the wiretaps illegal with its power of the purse. It can simply make it illegal to spend any U.S. money on wiretaps not authorized by FISA or other statutes. If the "other statutes" is listed explicitly, then the use of force authorization wouldn't be applicable.
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quote: A Justice Department official who spoke only on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the program, said, however, that Gonzales's letter "should not be taken or construed to be talking about anything other than" the NSA program "as described by the president."
or completely not interesting unless you want to write a slanted, misleading article to sell papers
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quote: Woolsey, President Bill Clinton's first CIA director, defended the eavesdropping program.
"The one-spy-at-a-time surveillance systems of the Cold War -- including FISA, through courts -- are not designed to deal with fast-moving battlefield electronic mapping" of today's terrorism fight, he said. "An al-Qaeda or a Hezbollah computer might be captured which contains a large number of e-mail addresses and phone numbers which would have to be checked out very promptly," he said, and the FISA warrant process is too cumbersome to allow it.
posted
DarkKnight, I don't even necessarily disagree with you that the wiretapping could be necessary. However, I have not heard ANY legal justification from the administration that I have found sufficient. They all seem to rely on the notion that because this is a time of war the executive branch's power has grown exponentially. I find this argument to be severly lacking. First, I would like to know how to determine if this is a time of war and for how long this time of war is going to extend. As far as I can tell, if it is a fear of terrorism that makes this a time of war that is a state that is likely to exist permanently. Even if it is the situation in Iraq that is making this war time, wars in other nations are also exceedingly common. We are still in Kosovo mananging a post war situation. This justification also seems likely to extend at least decades. I don't think that is at all what the constitution meant by a time of war. I also worry that this justification can start extending to things like the war on drugs and poverty. I am very uncomfortable with all of this power concentrated in the executive branch. Whether or not the Clinton executive branch also enjoys having increased powers is not a sufficient justification for me.
Posts: 416 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
I heard an bit on NPR last night, but can't find conformation on the web yet, about an Islamic Charity taking their case to court, claiming that it was the NSA's Phone Taps that got them listed as supporting terror, and got them their assets frozen.
If that is the case, we now have an organization that can take this to court, where the Supreme Court may (should) be able to determine whether or not the President has the legal authority to do this.
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posted
Google news page about the Islamic charity suing over NSA wiretapping. There are 29 links on it.
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Too cumbersome? The FISA act allows you to wiretap and perform electronic surveillance, and ask the FISA court for permission after you've already started. And out of the tens of thousands of FISA requests, the court has only rejected about a half-dozen or so.
How is that too cumbersome?
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posted
Whether or not it's too cumbersome depends on the volume of requests that would be required. Further, many of these interceptions probably lacked probable cause, which means FISA wouldn't help at all.
Even in cases where probable cause could be established, it would likely make the process very cumbersome. Establishing probable cause for all 300 phone numbers found in a cell phone is likely to be very cumbersome.
Bush is claiming the right to initiate this surveillance on less than probable cause; using a procedure that requires a higher evidentiary burden is more cumbersome.
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