my latest neocon battle...a little help?

this is what i recieved today from the neocon on my message msot of us don't like.

The nyt and the screaming, leapin lefties on this board are whining about bush's executive order and how it supposedly violates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

as usual libs are wrong when they thought that FISA requires warrants from the FISA judge, but that isn't what FISA says at all. In fact, FISA gives the government wide latitude in warrantless surveillance of international communications even when one point originates in the US -- as long as the person in the US does not qualify as a "US person":

(i) “United States person” means a citizen of the United States, an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence (as defined in section 1101 (a)(20) of title 8), an unincorporated association a substantial number of members of which are citizens of the United States or aliens lawfully admitted for permanent residence, or a corporation which is incorporated in the United States, but does not include a corporation or an association which is a foreign power, as defined in subsection (a)(1), (2), or (3) of this section.

FISA authorizes warrantless surveillance in its opening chapter:

(1) Notwithstanding any other law, the President, through the Attorney General, may authorize electronic surveillance without a court order under this subchapter to acquire foreign intelligence information for periods of up to one year if the Attorney General certifies in writing under oath that—
(A) the electronic surveillance is solely directed at—
(i) the acquisition of the contents of communications transmitted by means of communications used exclusively between or among foreign powers, as defined in section 1801 (a)(1), (2), or (3) of this title; or
(ii) the acquisition of technical intelligence, other than the spoken communications of individuals, from property or premises under the open and exclusive control of a foreign power, as defined in section 1801 (a)(1), (2), or (3) of this title;
(B) there is no substantial likelihood that the surveillance will acquire the contents of any communication to which a United States person is a party; and
(C) the proposed minimization procedures with respect to such surveillance meet the definition of minimization procedures under section 1801 (h) of this title; and

if the Attorney General reports such minimization procedures and any changes thereto to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence at least thirty days prior to their effective date, unless the Attorney General determines immediate action is required and notifies the committees immediately of such minimization procedures and the reason for their becoming effective immediately.
(2) An electronic surveillance authorized by this subsection may be conducted only in accordance with the Attorney General’s certification and the minimization procedures adopted by him. The Attorney General shall assess compliance with such procedures and shall report such assessments to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence under the provisions of section 1808 (a) of this title.

the only two people who can set this are and make this call are the President and the Attorney General, and it doesn't even make the accidental or tangential exposure of communications with US persons a crime. It only requires that the AG ensure that mitigation procedures have been applied to ensure compliance with FISA. The only way that one can violate this law is if the law gets intentionally violated. In other words, one would have to prove that Bush intentionally ordered the surveillance of a qualifying US person.

Since the folks who were LEGALLY wiretappe within the US got identified through intelligence developed through captures of al-Qaeda agents and their equipment, it seems rather unlikely that they had contacts with many US-born American citizens. Most AQ assets enter countries on student visas -- which does not qualify them as a US person under FISA and therefore does not extend them the protection of warrants prior to or during surveillance.

As the New York Times undoubtedly discovered during its research, the NSA probably never broke the law at all, and certainly nothing uncovered in their article indicates any evidence that they did. Neither did President Bush in ordering the NSA to actually follow the law in aggressively pursuing the intelligence leads provided by their capture of terrorists in the field. The only real news that the Times provided is that the US didn't need the 9/11 Commission to tell it to use all the tools at its disposal -- and hence the angry speech given by the President this morning.

so, as usual, bush was right, and is protecting the country legally, i know, i know, protecting this country against all enemies foreign and domestic is right up there with the constitution, something you lefties pretend to like but actually loath.....but, he is right, and you anti american whiners are wrong, AGAIN...HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHA.

Did he do that?

I don't remember B*** mentioning that in his speech. Instead, he said "I authorized..."

Which is entirely different. And still illegal.

Busted again! Ha ha!

:crazy:

:dunce:

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment04/05.html#1

snip... The question of the scope of the President's constitutional powers, if any, remains judicially unsettled. 156 Congress has acted, however, providing for a special court to hear requests for warrants for electronic surveillance in foreign intelligence situations, and permitting the President to authorize warrantless surveillance to acquire foreign intelligence information provided that the communications to be monitored are exclusively between or among foreign powers and there is no substantial likelihood any ''United States person'' will be overheard.


so can he prove no US persons were overheard? and was Bushie ONLY listening to foreign "powers" ??

I'm thinking, not so much......

according to the NYT "The agency operation included eavesdropping on communications between Americans and other individuals in the United States and people in Afghanistan without the court-approved search warrants that are normally required for such domestic intelligence activities.

that the only people spied upon were non-"US persons"? It's a good factual argument being made - but only if you know it was applied in that way.

Also, it seems strange for any true Republican to be defending Big Brother type big government at all - much less the type that requires a whole lot of legal loopholes to explain and defend.

But, hey, there are those Enemies. Who hate Freedom. So let's spy on everyone just in case.

Jose Padilla is an American citizen, yes?

i threw up AZDemDist6 response here...changed a few words of course and we'll see what kind of assinine response i recieve. normally this guy, completely stops responding after you prove him wrong, he rarely continues an arguement, and instead goes off on to another topic, while ignoring the initial one, even if he started it.

this is standard neocon debate.

I'd hazard a guess that all of them were.

"“United States person” means a citizen of the United States, an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence (as defined in section 1101 (a)(20) of title 8), an unincorporated association a substantial number of members of which are citizens of the United States or aliens lawfully admitted for permanent residence, or a corporation which is incorporated in the United States, but does not include a corporation or an association which is a foreign power, as defined in subsection (a)(1), (2), or (3) of this section."

Sorry buddy, but "seems rather unlikely" is insufficient. Also, US-born American citizen isn't the description set forth within the statute. US Person is described above, and it's a much broader definition than "US-born".

What an imbecile.

welcome to DU, MrDale ...

here's an excellent write-up on the FISA law by the Electronic Frontier Foundation's (EFF) Senior Counsel: http://www.eff.org/Censorship/Terrorism_militias/fisa_faq.html

bush said: ""I authorized the National Security Agency, consistent with U.S. law and the Constitution, to intercept the international communications of people with known links to al Qaeda and related terrorist organizations."

the FISA law would NOT allow this spying to occur on "US persons" (i.e. US citizens and permanent resident aliens) without "probable cause" being established by a US court.



the person you are arguing with wrote:



first of all, the person is ASSUMING no "US persons" were spied on ... there is no basis provided to support this assumption ...

bush specifically said that those spied on were "people with known links to al Qaeda and related terrorist organizations" ... that is NOT an adequate standard to violate the fourth amendment rights of US persons ... to spy on US persons, bush would have had to establish "probably cause" in a US court ...

republicans spend a lot of time whining about courts that "legislate from the bench" ... funny how when the President violates the Constitutional rights of US citizens they don't seem at all concerned ... the FISA law provides very clear and specific rules for "domestic spying" ... bush doesn't get to decide when he can violate those rules ...

as my post says:

As the New York Times undoubtedly discovered during its research, the NSA probably never broke the law at all, and certainly nothing uncovered in their article indicates any evidence that they did.

it is up to you and your ilk to show that normal citizens of the u.s. who have no stake in terrorism, were illegally wiretapped in a clear and intentional violation of the law...and as the ny times and so far you and others on this board, nothing like that has happened.

unless you see something in the article that shows a violation of the law.....looks like you are wrong again....just another partisan attempt against the president.

...and

as is the usual modus operandi of the dems, they lied saying they didnt know about he nsa wire tapping program....

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi confessed late Saturday that she signed off on President Bush's decision to have a top intelligence agency conduct "unspecified activities" to gather intelligence on possible terrorists operating inside the U.S. in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

"I was advised of President Bush's decision to provide authority to the National Security Agency to conduct unspecified activities shortly after he made it and have been provided with updates on several occasions," Pelosi admitted.

The San Francisco Democrat claimed she expressed "strong concerns" about the "unspecified activities" at the time, but offered no evidence to that effect.

Pelosi declined to explain why she didn't make public her concerns about the authorization, which Democrats now say was an outrageous abuse of civil rights. ME, BECAUSE IT IS POLITICALLY MOTIVATED TO BITCH ABOUT THE PRES....

Instead, Pelosi admitted keeping silent about the "unspecified activities" even though she now believes they may have been illegal, saying Bush's acknowledgment of the NSA program on Saturday "raises serious questions as to what the activities were and whether the activities were lawful."

On Sunday, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid also admitted he kept silent about the controversial program, even though he was briefed on its existence "a couple of months ago."

Still, he insisted that it made no difference that Democratic congressional leaders knew about the NSA program, telling Fox News Sunday: "This is something that's the president and the vice president and there's no way he can pass the buck."

here's the latest from the neo-cons...

with the whining partisan lefties here and in th media, im wondering why no one brought up the 60 minutes story, when the ny times suggested that the Bush administration has instituted "a major shift in American intelligence-gathering practices" when it "secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without getting court-approved warrants."

But in fact, the NSA had been monitoring private domestic telephone conversations on a much larger scale throughout the 1990s - all of it done without a court order, let alone a catalyst like the 9/11 attacks.

In February 2000, for instance, CBS "60 Minutes" correspondent Steve Kroft introduced a report on the Clinton-era spy program by noting:

"If you made a phone call today or sent an e-mail to a friend, there's a good chance what you said or wrote was captured and screened by the country's largest intelligence agency. The top-secret Global Surveillance Network is called Echelon, and it's run by the National Security Agency."
NSA computers, said Kroft, "capture virtually every electronic conversation around the world."

Echelon expert Mike Frost, who spent 20 years as a spy for the Canadian equivalent of the National Security Agency, told "60 Minutes" that the agency was monitoring "everything from data transfers to cell phones to portable phones to baby monitors to ATMs."

Mr. Frost detailed activities at one unidentified NSA installation, telling "60 Minutes" that agency operators "can listen in to just about anything" - while Echelon computers screen phone calls for key words that might indicate a terrorist threat.

The "60 Minutes" report also spotlighted Echelon critic, then-Rep. Bob Barr, who complained that the project as it was being implemented under Clinton "engages in the interception of literally millions of communications involving United States citizens."

his newest beef is that this was happening under clinton with no war going on. i've already pulled out the "dude, deal with the present time, illegal activity is still going on today and it is by the bush administration, i can't help it that you republicans dropped the ball during clinton's adminstration to help our security in favor finding out how much spooge clinton launched on monica's dress"

When a new Democratic president takes these new, unenumerated and illegal domestic spying powers out for a spin.

No one is saying we can't try to wiretap the Russian embassy calling to Moscow, with or without a warrant.

The issue is "U.S. persons" and that is what Smirky was allowing.

And you right-wing assholes have nothing to worry about over this slick little no-warrant, no-courts wiretapping thingy your little Naziboy was nice enough to create for me.

Far be it from ME to tap all your fascist organizations' lines and set up a beautiful conspiracy rap when I catch you sellin' secrets to Israel, stealin' elections and all that stuff you guys do all the time.

Have a nice day.