The Administration has tried to explain away its opposition to the DeWine legislation which would have loosened eavesdropping requirements under FISA by claiming that the DeWine standard of "reasonable suspicion" was lower than the standard which Bush’s secret program used ("reasonable basis to believe") and they were concerned that DeWine’s standard would be unconstitutional. Think Progress today compellingly demonstrates that the Administration’s response to this story is both false and contradictory.
But in addition to being false, the Administration’ explanation is also irrelevant -- really besides the point of this whole story. Certain media stories have effectively conveyed some of the issues raised by this matter but have not quite grasped the most significant part of it, and the Administration's response does not, as a result, address the real issue. What matters most here is not that the Administration refused to support the DeWine legislation (although that does matter), but what the Administration said in July, 2002 when explaining their refusal to support it.
The overriding point for this scandal is always that the law (FISA) makes it a crime to eavesdrop on Americans without judicial oversight and judicial approval, and the Administration engaged in such eavesdropping anyway and therefore broke the law (and continues to break the law) -- and that all of this stems from the Administration's theory that it has the right to violate the law because we are in "wartime." But ever since this scandal arose, the glaring question has always been: given how permissive FISA is and how rubber-stamping the FISA court has always been, what possible reason could the Administration have for deciding to eavesdrop without complying with the law and obtaining judicial approval under FISA? In short, what was their motive for breaking the law?
The Administration finally provided a coherent explanation for the first time on Tuesday when Gen. Hayden claimed that the "probable cause" requirement for getting a warrant under FISA was too restrictive and therefore did not allow them to engage in the eavesdropping they wanted. But the important point here is that Gen. Hayden's excuse for why the Administration decided to eavesdrop outside of FISA is transparently false, and -- in several different ways -- the Administration’s own statements from DoJ official James A. Baker made in connection with the DeWine legislation directly contradict the explanation it is now giving for its conduct:
(1) According to Baker's June, 2002 Statement, FISA’s "probable cause" standard was not creating any problems for the Administration in obtaining the eavesdropping warrants they needed.
Baker's Statement directly contradicts the explanation which the Administration sent Gen. Hayden to give on Tuesday as to why the Administration decided to eavesdrop outside of FISA – because, according to Gen. Hayden, the "probable cause" standard was too stringent. The fact that the Administration in 2002 clearly said that they were not aware of any problems presented by FISA’s "probable cause" showing -- and therefore perceived no reason to change FISA -- demonstrates that the explanation they are now giving as to why they eavesdropped without FISA oversight is simply false.
This, by itself, is an enormous story – the Administration finally, for the first time, offered a clear and coherent reason why they eavesdropped outside of FISA, and that explanation is clearly false, as proven by the Administration’s own statements in 2002 which directly contradict that explanation.
(2) Ever since this scandal was first disclosed, the Administration claimed that it had to eavesdrop outside of FISA because it needed "speed and agility" when eavesdropping, and -- without ever explaining why -- implied that FISA lacks this "speed and agility" (even though FISA allows warrantless eavesdropping for up to 72 hours). The President in his first Press Conference on this issue claimed (with no rationale given) that FISA was inadequate because "We've got to be fast on our feet, quick to detect and prevent." And in his Press appearance, Gen. Hayden claimed that the 72-hour window for warrantless eavesdropping was insufficient because the requirements for invoking it were still too cumbersome.
But, in his Statement to Congress, Baker expressly singled out the 72-hour window for warrantless eavesdropping (which was created by the Patriot Act) and specifically praised it for giving the Administration the speed and agility it needed to track terrorists:
One simple but important change that Congress made was to lengthen the time period for us to bring to court applications in support of Attorney General-authorized emergency FISAs. This modification has allowed us to make full and effective use of FISA's pre-existing emergency provisions to ensure that the government acts swiftly to respond to terrorist threats. Again, we are grateful for the tools Congress provided us last fall for the fight against terrorism. Thank you.
Does that sound like an Administration which thinks that FISA and its 72-hour window are insufficiently slow and too cumbersome to allow it to engage in the eavesdropping it wants? Clearly, the Administration was telling Congress that the changes which Congress effectuated to FISA (via the Patriot Act) had given the Administration everything it needed with eavesdropping power. The Administration was clearly telling Congress it was happy with the broad eavesdropping powers it had under FISA.
Thus, the Administration’s excuse from the time the scandal broke and repeated by Gen. Hayden two days ago – that FISA does not provide the necessary "speed and agility" for eavesdropping - was directly contradicted by its claims in June, 2002 that the Patriot Act’s FISA amendments give it all the speed and agility it needed.
Here is the critical point: if, as the Administration is now claiming, FISA was inadequate for eavesdropping, why was it telling the Congress in June, 2002 that FISA was perfectly adequate to enable all the eavesdropping it wanted, and even praising Congress for amending FISA (via the Patriot Act) and thereby giving the Administration everything it needed?
(3) There are several critical facts to note about Baker’s Statement:
(a) Baker was not some out-of-the-loop DoJ bureaucrat. To the contrary, he was the official in charge of the FISA application process, which means that if anyone would know if FISA really were impeding the eavesdropping which the Administration wanted to engage in, it would be Baker.
(b) This was not some lone-wolf Statement made by Baker, but rather, was the considered position of the Administration itself on this issue. As former Justice Department official and current Georgetown Law Professor Marty Lederman explained (to GWU Law Professor Orin Kerr):
Baker wasn't speaking for OIPR [Office of Intelligence Policy and Review] here, or on his own -- he was speaking for the Department ("I welcome the chance to provide the views of the Department"; "I thank the Committee for the opportunity to present the views of the Department"). And, as you and I know, his testimony would have been scrubbed inter-agency, through OMB, by all affected entities and agencies, including OVP and NSA. So, this was a careful, Administration-sanctioned delaying mechanism.
(c) Bush’s secret, FISA-bypass eavesdropping program began in late, 2001 -- more than 6 months before Baker’s Statement was issued. Thus, as of the time that the secret FISA-bypass eavesdropping was underway, the Administration’s own DoJ was not aware of any of the supposed problems with FISA which the Administration is now claiming caused it to bypass FISA, and the Administration specifically told Congress then the opposite of what it is now claiming (that FISA’s probable cause requirement impeded necessary eavesdropping).
(4) Virtually every significant political law-breaking scandal in our nation’s history is comprised of two components: (a) the law-breaking itself, and (b) the subsequent attempts to cover up and explain away the law-breaking with falsehoods and untrue explanations.
That is what we are seeing now. The Administration scrambled for a full month to explain why they had to eavesdrop outside of the very permissive FISA scheme, to explain why they eavesdropped with no judicial oversight even though the law makes it a criminal offense to do so. We had been fed nothing but incoherent gibberish about the need for "speed and agility" in this "different war."
Now we finally heard an explanation from the Administration as to why they supposedly had to eavesdrop in violation of FISA -- because FISA supposedly was too rigid to allow the eavesdropping they wanted to do -- and that explanation is clearly false, as proven by the Administration's own statements and conduct at the time.
Leaving aside the always-paramount fact that the Administration has no right in our system of government to simply violate laws when it claims it has a good reason to break the law – and that principle, from start to finish, is what this scandal is about – the fact that the Administration is disseminating patently false explanations for why it violated the law does also leave the quite pressing and still unanswered question:
What is the real reason the Administration chose to eavesdrop in violation of FISA -- i.e., in secret and with no oversight -- rather than within FISA and with oversight? There is still no viable answer to that question from the Administration. Whatever the real reason is, the Administration still has not disclosed it. One thing is clear: the explanation given by Gen. Hayden this week simply is untrue.
god, I hope the Senate hearings actually do something about this.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the detailed info. How outrageous--the admin not only breaks the law, ir then lies about why it had to break the law. As you say though, the tendency to cover up is nothing new.
This is such crazy stuff. An administration that has violated federal statute and the Constitution, admits it, is unrepentant, and lies about why it had to break the law.
Thanks for the great work. I am hoping they don't continue to get away with this.
"What is the real reason the Administration operated outside of FISA and in secret, with no oversight, rather than within FISA and with oversight?"
ReplyDeleteMy guess is that the administration essentially considers every single person on American soil a potential terrorist, or terrorist sympathizer (a category which almost certainly includes any critic of its GWOT policies and actions) and therefore thinks it should and does have the absolute and unchecked power to find out who each of us is communicating with. From there, if anything looks "suspicious," then further investigation becomes appropriate. That might even include actually applying for a FISA warrant.
My take on it is this:
ReplyDeleteWhatever I want to do is reasonable.
Due process is your guarantee that a judge would agree.
Maybe they did the eavesdropping just because they could. I don't mean that to sound flip: just look at how David Addington and Scooter Libby and that Berkeley law prof interpret executive power.
ReplyDeleteThe thing that amazes me about this whole affair is that the Administration knew over a year ago that the cat was out of the bag, when they asked the NY Times to withhold their story. One would think that they would have been working on their stories since that day.
ReplyDeleteI don't mean that to sound flip: just look at how David Addington and Scooter Libby and that Berkeley law prof interpret executive power.
ReplyDeleteI have always only seen 2 possibilities for why they violated FISA: (1) they didn't want a FISA judge to know who they were eavesdropping on, and/or (2) they wanted to install the Yoo Theory of the Presidency which holds that Bush can do whatever he wants, including violate laws, when we are in "wartime" (and a close corallary to this is that Bush thinks he should be able to eavesdrop on whomever he wants without having to get permission from some judge).
Whatever the reasons are, it doesn't really matter. This scandal is about the fact that the Administration broke the law on purpose and in secret because it thinks it has the power of law-breaking. The reason it did this is really secondary.
But it's worthwhile to point out that we still don't know the reason why they did it not because the reason matters, but because the explanation they gave as to why they did it is so clearly false. That they are now giving false explanations for their law-breaking becomes just as important as the law-breaking itself.
Glenn: I think they didn't go through the FISA process for the simple reason you've already suggested: that the surveillance they wanted to engage in was unlawful under FISA and thus would never be approved by the FISA court.
ReplyDeleteMy guess is that it goes beyond FISA in three ways:
1. As you note, FISA requires a showing of probable cause. They're working on a somewhat-to-much lower "reasonable basis" showing (and of course, because they're not going to a court, they only have to satisfy *themselves* of the lower showing).
2. Probable cause or reasonable basis that . . . what? Under FISA, that the *targeted* person in the U.S. is an agent of a foreign power. (We're principally talking about domestic-to-foreign calls here -- international-to-domestic calls were never covered by FISA in the first place unless intercepted in the U.S.) But I get the distinct sense from their public statements that the Administration is requiring only a reasonable basis that a party on *either* end of the communication is "covered." An example: You're the cousin of someone who they suspect of being Al Qaeda overseas. They tap *your* outgoing calls to your cousin, even where there's no proof that you have anything to do with Al Qaeda. FISA wouldn't allow that, even *with* probable cause that your foreign cousin is an agent of a foreign power.
3. They're not limiting it to proof (or "reasonable basis") that someone on the call is an agent of a foreign power. It appears to be enough under the NSA program that one person on the call (again, at either end) is a member of a group affiliated with a foreign power -- which could be a far cry from being an agent of a foreign power (let alone a foreign power responsible for 9/11 and thus covered by the AUMF). Again, that goes beyond FISA.
Because a good number of the calls involve one or more of those three diversions from FISA standards, going through the FISA Court was not an option. That's my best guess right now, anyway.
Good work -- Marty
First, great job reporting the 2002 Baker statement, Mr. Greenwald!
ReplyDeleteSecond, I think if we could uncover who the Bush administration was trying to eavesdrop on when they had their warrant requests rejected by the FISA court, then we could get a general idea of who they were trying to listen to and why. Remember...the Bush admin had A LOT more warrant requests turned down than the five (I believe it was five) which were turned down throughout previous years. So why were so many turned down? Were they trying to listen to the opposition in a Nixonesque way?
I believe they were tired of not getting their way and decided to bypass the court as a whole with legal "reasoning" (ha!) from Yoo and Gonzales.
Glenn, kudos for getting your findings some widespread notice. I find ALL of your posts well written, easy to read, and explains EVERYTHING in a way that non-legal wonks can understand.
ReplyDeleteThere was one thing on your original story about Baker's opinion, and again in this post that I feel needs a bit more explanation:
(c) Bush’s secret, FISA-bypass eavesdropping program began in late, 2001 -- more than 6 months before Baker’s Statement was issued. Thus, as of the time that the secret FISA-bypass eavesdropping was underway, the Administration’s own DoJ was not aware of any of the supposed problems with FISA which the Administration is now claiming caused it to bypass FISA, and the Administration specifically told Congress then the opposite of what it is now claiming (that FISA’s probable cause requirement impeded necessary eavesdropping).
This seems like a hedge (something that say the WaPO would hint at something nasty to be reported on later), but you dont seem to hedge around with things...so this is why I am asking for an explanation/your opinion on it. Are you suggesting that Bush went to the NSA and specifically told them to go through with the warrantless wiretapping and purposely keep the DoJ out of the loop? or are you suggesting that Baker was in on the ruse and used his statements to help provide cover for some of the stuff they were doing at the NSA (sorta like "hey we got all we want and we believe that there are constitutional issues with the change....and by the way we would never ever ever think about breaking the law").
What are your thoughts?
[I have a second thought on this stuff, but this post is getting long so I will make another post about it]
[decided against a second post, carry on with your normal programming :)]
ReplyDeleteRe: why would the Admin bypass an already-lax statute? The only answer that makes any sense to me is that they knew the court would laugh their warrant requests out of the courtroom because the targets were domestic political opposition with no possible connection to terrorism. As to who the targets may have been, the paranoid in me thinks they were/are mining any info they could in order to blackmail opponents, Dem politicians, "hostile" media-types, etc. Another related point that I have yet to see made anywhere: Admin apologists continually claim that since we are "at war", the constitution grants the President the power to take measures that would otherwise be unlawful. I'm no lawyer, but doesn't this argument defeat itself, in that we are not constitutionally at war (no congressional declaration)? Any responses?
ReplyDeleteAre you suggesting that Bush went to the NSA and specifically told them to go through with the warrantless wiretapping and purposely keep the DoJ out of the loop? or are you suggesting that Baker was in on the ruse and used his statements to help provide cover for some of the stuff they were doing at the NSA (sorta like "hey we got all we want and we believe that there are constitutional issues with the change....and by the way we would never ever ever think about breaking the law").
ReplyDeleteI don't know the answer to that and, as of this moment, I don't know what I think about that. My original assumption was that Baker did not know of the secret "bypass" program when he submitted his statement, and he just assumed that everything was being done through FISA and that there were no problems with it.
But Marty Lederman has speculated that the reason they had Baker submit this Statement was because he DID know of the program, but they did not want this legislation passed because it would undermine their ability to claim that the secret problem was legally authorized (he cites several reasons for this view in the Comment on Volokh that I cited in this post, which is worth reading), and also that they did not want a half-way approval. Marty obviously knows a great deal about how the DoJ works and he has been extremely insightful on this issue, so I take seriously whatever theories he has, though this one has not yet convinced me entirely.
Either way, the factual statements about FISA made by Baker to Congress demonstrate that the Administration never had problems with getting warrants under FISA (because if they did, Baker would know of them, whether or not he was aware of the existence of the bypass program).
Your point is well-taken that the Administration response is largely beside the point, but I still can't get past the response itself.
ReplyDeleteHere it is again:
"The FISA 'probable cause' standard is essentially the same as the 'reasonable basis' standard used in the terrorist surveillance program," said [DoJ] spokeswoman Tasia Scolinos. "The 'reasonable suspicion' standard, which is lower than both of these, is not used in either program."
The Bush Administration is arguing that "reasonable basis to believe" is somehow different than "reasonable suspicion". Sorry, but that is language-parsing of Clintonesque proportions. Even non-lawyers will understand that.
And for us legal-minded folk, the full argument (that "reasonable basis to believe" is actually the equivalent of "probable cause") would make even Scalia blanche.
By the way, Marty Lederman nailed it in his comments here.
Hi southend--the argument goes that the executive has the authority to engage in war in response to an attack. This is (part of) the "Yoo Theory" which Mr. Greenwald is refering to. If you read Yoo's recent book, he actually makes a pretty good case for it. However, it's a more difficult question as to whether this authority extends to any domestic activity which the president decides is necessary for national security. I find this idea hightly implausible, and in fact I think that Yoo's work suggests otherwise.
ReplyDeleteThe claim that the President can suspend law is, as I understand it, technically true, but is an extremely limited power. I think it would be obvious to any court that the president does not currently exercise this power. Unfortunately, I don't think it requires a declared state of war (though I hope, for all our sakes, that I'm wrong about that.)
So I think that means the answer to your question is "no", but nevertheless that doesn't mean the administration is right.
A brief observation:
ReplyDeleteIf (as some has speculated) Baker was "in the loop" on the NSA wiretapping at the time he provided his Statement (re: DeWine Amendment), it seems pretty clear that he violated the Fraud and False Statements Act.
Glenn: I think you are much closer to a motive when you mention the Yoo doctrine.
ReplyDeleteThis essentially gives the Prez immunity for his actions as CIC. This is the only thing that will keep the lid on across all the areas of controversy, most especially the torture stuff.
That is, I think this administration has legal exposure that goes well beyond the NSA scandal, and that will endure after W's presidency.
He needs a doctrine that provides immunity to avoid the Pinochet treatment.
Man, this is now one of my favorite blogs.
ReplyDeleteYou hit a crucial point that the MSM isn't addressing at all here: The President broke the law. Why are we seeing polls that ask "should the President wiretap terror suspects without a warrant"? Shouldn't we instead be seeing polls that simply ask "Should the President be able to break the law"?
The former falls out roughly 50/50. I'd be very surprised if even 20 percent of Americans approved of letting the President violate the law at will.
I suspect the MSM is addicted to the manufactured drama of a nation evenly divided.
My take on it is this:
ReplyDeleteEverything, and I mean EVERYTHING, that this President does is driven by political considerations first, as we all have seen.
I believe the reason Bush didn't go through FISA is because his warrantless spying (and those two words should be joined at the hip when discussing this scandal) was on political opponents, from the media to citizen activists to fellow officeholders.
It had nothing to do with terrorism. It was about maintaining power and crushing both actual and potential political threats to his power.
This type of activity, of course, would never get FISA approval.
It's only a theory. But what else can explain all the unexplained questions here?
Even more worrisome to me is Bush's expansion of the Uniformed Secret Service under section 605 of Patriot II, which would give the President unilateral power to declare "a special event of national significance," allowing said USS forces to make warrantless arrests "for any offense against the United States committed in their presence."
And then there's the matter of asking search engine companies for their records. To help stamp out, um, child porn, of course.
When combined with his current claim to conduct warrantless wiretapping, these would theoretically give Bush the power to both monitor and arrest political enemies without warrant, simply on his say-so.
More Depressing is this from the WaPo that GOP want NOT to be briefed on the actual program itself.
ReplyDelete"...Pressed yesterday by Democratic members of the Senate intelligence committee for a closed hearing or briefing on the NSA program, Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) said he had scheduled a Feb. 1 Justice Department briefing on the legal issues involved but not on the program itself. Under Roberts's proposal, the committee will meet on Feb. 16 "to discuss the terrorist surveillance issue" but apparently will not be briefed on what it entails.
Democrats told Roberts yesterday they want a business meeting of the committee Tuesday, when they will call for a vote on whether to hold a hearing or briefing with NSA witnesses, congressional sources said."
So the point being they are purposely avoiding the information on the program about the WHO and WHY of the targets and how they were chosen - the very substance of the question you posit here.
Makes ya think they are both afraid to find out the REAL reasons for this program and afraid for any of US to learn these answers either.
Drat: this the WaPo article Link that does not work on the comment above
ReplyDeletehttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/25/AR2006012500534.html
*sorry*
To jump on your bandwagon quite late, I linked to you here. You've been doing terrific work. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteI've been posting, among numerous other topics, in my own utterly amateur way, on First Amendment issues for many years, including the four years I've been blogging. And have been addressing the NSA issue in many posts, save during a recent break. I also had a quite long post here with many links as to why I believe the Admin keeps asserting they couldn't go to FISA.
Please note that I'm attacking the Admin on this, not excusing them, by attempting to explain my combination of facts and hypothesis as to what's going on, technically, that has led them to ignore FISA. I realize it's a long post, with lots of links that lead to other posts with lots of links.
Thanks again for your superb blogging.
Glenn,
ReplyDeleteThere's been a lot of speculation as to why the Bush administration decided to launch this program in the first place, and that's certainly an interesting question, but what I'm more curious about is why--now that the program has been exposed--they are so agressively advocating such obviously bogus legal theories.
They have to know that if they are ever forced to litigate these arguments, they will lose, and in humiliating fashion. There's just no way that any court will ever buy these arguments. So, from a strategic perspective, what is it that they think they're doing? Do they think that the issue will never get to court, that they can fend off all challenges on standing grounds? Are they just trying to buy time? Are they bluffing? If this does get to court, will they try to moot it like they did with the Padilla case by stopping the program or securing genuine Congressional authorization? I'm curious what you think is going on here.
My own hunch is this. They know their legal arguments will never hold up, but they're just trying to run out the clock right now and avoid being legally rebuked prior to the next Congressional election. Their deepest fear is that the Democrats will manage to take back one of the chambers of Congress and thereby regain the subpoena power. If that happens, suddenly all the latent scandals, all the skeletons in the closet, will be in danger of being exposed. So for the immediate future, they've just decided to pound the table as loudly and incoherently as possible and hope that it's enough to intimidate Congress and the judiciary, making them reluctant to do anything about this prior to November.
Anonymous Liberal asks:
ReplyDelete"If this does get to court, will they try to moot it like they did with the Padilla case by stopping the program or securing genuine Congressional authorization?
The nightmare scenario is that even if the Bush Administration's arguments fall flat before the Supreme Court, it will change nothing operationally.
The rule of law appears to mean little to these people (unlike, say, the appearance of following the rule of law). I expect that if the Executive loses before the courts, the internal sentiment would be, "Okay. The courts disagree with us. Constitutionally, we don't have to abide by THAT branch of government either. Besides, what can they do? We ARE the arm of the law."
Apologies; when I wrote my prior comment, I'd not caught up to your prior post in which you accepted General Hayden's word that there is no data-mining involved in "The Program" (as James Risen says it's referred to); perhaps so. I'm disinclined to take General Hayden's word in a public speech for that, but he and you may, of course, be entirely correct. Apologies for not having read further in your posts before commenting, however.
ReplyDeleteThis is INCREDIBLY heavy.
ReplyDeleteGreat job, Mr. Greenwald, on bringing this to light.
I'm giving up the fight now. It won't be long until we're living life at the mercy of telescreens. I don't know about you guys, but I'm just gonna go Prole.
I expect that if the Executive loses before the courts, the internal sentiment would be, "Okay. The courts disagree with us. Constitutionally, we don't have to abide by THAT branch of government either. Besides, what can they do? We ARE the arm of the law."
ReplyDeleteNot to be paranoid or anything (yeah, right), but this may be the reason for the creation of C-Plus Augustus' Praetorian Guard in the latest version of the PATRIOT Act. This Administration will need its own dedicated police force -- one that owes its allegiance only to the President -- to prevent the removal of Bush from office if the Congress impeaches and convicts him of the "high crimes and misdemeanors" of which he is obviously guilty.
--Basharov
Do you think the Republicans will be so willing to extend Presidential powers to include illegal operations because of wartime to the next President? What if the next one is a Democrat? What if it is Hillary? They better think about that because it'll be the Republicans who will become the enemy.
ReplyDeleteBush and cronies would lie if the truth sounded better. He wants to spy on us Stazi style without a paper trail, to ferret out those who don't agree with his tyranical dictatorship. I hate to give in to conspiracy theories, but don't you think bin Laden is his trump card? The fact that the guy is still at large allows Bush to buffalo the idiotic right who seem to hang on his every word. To think someone in Pig Knuckle, Kansas is worried about a terrorist attack in his backyard is ridiculous. When Bush is on the ropes, a new bin Laden tape magically appears to remind us of this "serious" threat. I'm an infantry veteran, and it's impossible for me to believe that bin Laden escaped with about 40 men on horeseback from Torah Bora. We gave the chore of security to the Pakis and tribesmen?? Crazy!! Didn't they help the Taliban set up shop in Afghanistan, and aren't they hardcore Muslims? I've heard lefty talk radio claim that the administration was incompetent in their handling of Torah Bora. I say they did exactly as they had planned. Are we supposed to believe bin Laden can make tapes and get them to arab TV but we can't find him? Bin Laden is Bushy's ace in the hole; he allows King George II to get away with his lying, spying, selling off American jobs, etc.(Way too many things to list) He's allowed to give his buddies tax break upon tax break, in time of war no less, because ignorant SHEOPLE think he's keeping us safe. Don't be surprised if bin Laden is captured right before the '06 elections or towards the end of Bush's reign. George Walker Bush is an enemy of the state; he should be tried, convicted, and put to death for treason. How many Americans have lost their lives as a result of his war of choice? How many families have been destroyed? This veteran says ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!!!!
ReplyDeleteI've been looking at the technical angle of the program & it seems likely that what it does is use direct access (provided by the phone companies) to the switches at the domestic/international demarc points to perform real-time link analysis to the call detail records of numbers dialed by targeted suspects, then adding any number called by those people (& maybe even any number called by the people called by those people) to the target list.
ReplyDeleteThis is what's meant by "a subtly softer trigger" & this is why they had to bypass FISA. There just is no way to get a warrant on the hundreds of people involved in this kind of operation, just from a logisitical standpoint let alone trying to justify them by saying "they know a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy we think is a terrorist".
Ironically, if I'm right the one true thing the Administration's said in all this mess is that when the exact nature of the program is confirmed, it will change the way terrorists act; anyone who gets the idea behind the surveillance program would be much more careful about their calling patterns & look to find ways to defeat it.
There is no reason for him to break the law, period. That's directed at you Scalefree. He has the majority in the house & senate, he could simply change the law. FISA has already been changed by this administration, why didn't they make it work? The wire taps are ILLEGAL! The president should be held accountable for his legal shortcomings; I know the average citizen would. The president needs to lead by example; he's not a king.
ReplyDelete