US News: The Letter of the Law (physical searches)

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/060327/27fbi.htm

In the dark days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a small group of lawyers from the White House and the Justice Department began meeting to debate a number of novel legal strategies to help prevent another attack. Soon after, President Bush authorized the National Security Agency to begin conducting electronic eavesdropping on terrorism suspects in the United States, including American citizens, without court approval. Meeting in the FBI's state-of-the-art command center in the J. Edgar Hoover Building, the lawyers talked with senior FBI officials about using the same legal authority to conduct physical searches of homes and businesses of terrorism suspects--also without court approval, one current and one former government official tell U.S. News. "There was a fair amount of discussion at Justice on the warrantless physical search issue," says a former senior FBI official. "Discussions about--if happened--where would the information go, and would it taint cases."

FBI Director Robert Mueller was alarmed by the proposal, the two officials said, and pushed back hard against it. "Mueller was personally very concerned," one official says, "not only because of the blowback issue but also because of the legal and constitutional questions raised by warrantless physical searches." FBI spokesman John Miller said none of the FBI's senior staff are aware of any such discussions and added that the bureau has not conducted "physical searches of any location without consent or a judicial order."

In December, the New York Times disclosed the NSA's warrantless electronic surveillance program, resulting in an angry reaction from President Bush. It has not previously been disclosed, however, that administration lawyers had cited the same legal authority to justify warrantless physical searches. But in a little-noticed white paper submitted by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to Congress on January 19 justifying the legality of the NSA eavesdropping, Justice Department lawyers made a tacit case that President Bush also has the inherent authority to order such physical searches. In order to fulfill his duties as commander in chief, the 42-page white paper says, "a consistent understanding has developed that the president has inherent constitutional authority to conduct warrantless searches and surveillance within the United States for foreign intelligence purposes." The memo cites congressional testimony of Jamie Gorelick, a former deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration, in 1994 stating that the Justice Department "believes, and the case law supports, that the president has inherent authority to conduct warrantless physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes."

"Black-bag jobs." Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse says the white paper cited the Gorelick testimony simply to bolster its legal defense of the NSA's electronic surveillance program. Roehrkasse points out that Justice Department lawyers have told Congress that the NSA program "described by the president does not involve physical searches." But John Martin, a former Justice Department attorney who prosecuted the two most important cases involving warrantless searches and surveillance, says the department is sending an unambiguous message to Congress. "They couldn't make it clearer," says Martin, "that they are also making the case for inherent presidential power to conduct warrantless physical searches."

KO was talking about this last night.

If this doesn't cause outrage nationwide, I'm headed to Costa Rica.

:hide:

English common law decreed that the King's authority ended at your doorstep. Inside your house the King couldn't touch you. Inside your house YOU were the king.

The Quartering Act of 1765 violated this central tenet of English citizenship and led American colonists to rebel. It consequently led directly to the establishment of the Third Amendment and indirectly to the Fourth, as well as being the basis for the unwritten right to privacy inherent in the Bill of Rights.

Look what happened to him. But, then again, what do you expect when a lot of the senior administration officials were mid-level true believers in the Nixon Admin?

I've heard again and again that the Clinton administration supported changing the law to regulate physical searches through FISA and the administration absolutely never challenged the legality of THOSE statutory restrictions, which render the previous opinion obsolete. Duh.

was talking about this Friday night on Countdown with Jonathon Turley and even said that this article will be the dominate debate in Washington next week----Here is a K&R to kick it off.

Martin, who has handled more intelligence-oriented criminal cases than anyone else at the Justice Department, puts the issue in stark terms: "The failure to allow it to be used in court is a concession that it is an illegal surveillance."

without a warrant-

snip>
In October, Immergut wrote to Nelson reassuring him that the FBI would not target terrorism suspects' lawyers without warrants and, even then, only "under the most exceptional circumstances," because the government takes attorney-client relationships "extremely seriously." Nelson nevertheless filed requests, under the Freedom of Information Act, with the NSA. The agency's director of policy, Louis Giles, wrote back, saying, "The fact of the existence or nonexistence of responsive records is a currently and properly classified matter."

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They've been spying on y'all for centuries

Now they are just making it LEGAL!!

that's the only difference I see

But I's just a Dumm Canuk

Whadda I know?? :shrug:

Is it almost-Fascism yet?

Here-

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2175442

from the same article...

Okay, all you so-called Democratic Senators. Monday morning, get right behind Russ on the Capitol steps and BACK HIS RESOLUTION. All 44 of you (I'm not counting Joementum).

How about since he gets to listen to our calls, read our emails, watch what web sites we go to, go through our homes and effectively spy on us without warrant or regulation that we get to do the same, we have access to every phone call, email, transmission and be allowed to search any room in the places he lives in without warning at any time and place surveillance devices in his residence, without notification for a good reason to any form of over site comittee...

I think he and Dick both would have a heart attack at that idea since they are the most secretive white house in the history of the country to my understanding and they have chosen to act with impunity to protect their rights to privacy while stripping the American people of theirs.

They are Swine, if the election somehow goes Republican in this off term election cycle... I'm moving to Belize, South America or some island out in the middle of nowhere that isn't too likely to be hit too hard by this Fascist Mussolini Wanna-be.

(Edited for unspellcheckedcked typo.)

...clearer," says Martin, "that they are also making the case for inherent presidential power to conduct warrantless physical searches."

After Reichtag II, which I'd guess is coming fairly soon, civil liberties will become a thing of the past. I also think international travel will involve much new and cumbersome red tape, possibly with hefty exit fees designed to discourage attempts to flee the country. All done in the name of National Security, of course. It's for your own good.

Didn't the original "Patriot Act" permit authorities to perform "sneak and peek" searches? Aren't these warrantless searches?

See, if it's done under the guise of "national security," that would be what the misAdministration will say made it legal - they had express allowance by Congress to go ahead and do whatever it takes to secure our safety. Ya know, whatever is a threat to the authority of the current misAdministration, like free elections .

Hope I'm wrong on this, and note I'm not supporting them in any way on this. I think it's a crock of shit and clearly counter to the 4th Amendment. Just saying what i'd expect misAdministration supporters to use as the central part of their argument.

Worst. Administration. Ever.

I am Adolph Bush and I will do what ever I damn well please!!!!

of Staff and maybe the CIA. From the leaked material that shows bush corruption and the public statement of the CIA saying that people do not join the CIA to become torturers and that they did not want the power to torture and the periodic quotes by Generals that bush is breaking the best fighting force in the world and countering bush's happy reports about the "progress" in Iraq for a more realistic assessment, I would bet there are still some decent people left in positions to stop bush/cheney and the PNAC and it may seem like we are not effective in posting about bush's latest outrages but I think and hope that it is encouraging those in a position to stop bushco to do something soon.

'FBI Director Robert Mueller was alarmed by the proposal, the two officials said, and pushed back hard against it. "Mueller was personally very concerned," one official says, "not only because of the blowback issue but also because of the legal and constitutional questions raised by warrantless physical searches."'

:dilemma:

a fire under all of us...including Congress, I hope.

I remember this coming up obliquely during the first set of Judiciary Committee hearings with Gonzales about this, the ones when he wasn't sworn in.

The sense is that Gonzales was talking about the NSA wiretapping program as "this particular" program or "just this" program, because there are other programs involving warrantless wiretaps OR SEARCHES.

So Gonzo is supposed to go back again and talk about this some more, but I doubt he's going to. Specter won't make him cough anything up.

The best bet is ACLU and FOIA requests.

I'm sure the NSA wiretaps are the tip of an iceberg that isn't reduced by global warming one cubic centimeter.