Informed does not mean approved. They didn't go publiic because they werew not allowed to go public, by law. And what Hatch doesn't know (and doesn't want to know) could fill libraries.

FYI to my regular readers: Peter Daou of Salon.com's "Daou Report" has linked this post, so you can expect some foul language and unsupported contentions from those bitter souls killing time until their next shift at Applebee's.

This isnt' the first time he's linked and I thank him for the traffic, and I'm just trying to figure out if Peter likes me, or hates me since he keeps sending them back.

:-)

Well, if they tell someone and that person doesn't have an opportunity to say whether it's okay in a judgement and that person also isn't allowed to talk about it to anyone....how does that qualify as review?

I don't follow.

...unsupported contentions from those bitter souls killing time until their next shift at Applebee's.

Talk about unsupported contentions. =)

I've gotta agree with zen_less on this - simply briefing a couple of FISA judges is not an adequate substitute for following procedure and obtaining a warrant. Briefing someone simply involves telling them "this is what we're doing, and we thought you should know about it." It's a one-way process.

Yankee,
I just linked in from the Daou Report. First I'd like to point out that I'm an electrical engineer and a former Marine, not a waiter. Second, I've read a great deal more foul language and slander from "wingnuts" than "moonbats". So far you're batting 0 fo 2.
Third, as your first poster pointed out, the 2 judges on the 11 judge panel that were "briefed" weren't even asked wheither they approved. Nor were they asked for their opinion on the legality of the program. Not to belabour the point, but the administration has been careful to avoid giving any judge the opurtunity to offer a legal opinion on the program. Three strikes, you're out.
This issue doesn't need any more spin. People like you are giving it plenty. What it needs is full disclosure and a day in court.

Ah common' now laintBacchus let'em spin. It's fun to watch-lately they've been getting dizzy and pukin' on each other. Maybe their "balences" are off.

Hear, hear. "were notified of" is not the same thing as "granted a warrant for." All this stuff -- NSA warrantless wiretapping, FBI phone-record gathering, NSA phone-record gathering -- needs to land before a judge without further delay. I don't necessarily expect it all to be tossed out, but I no longer trust the administration to give us a straight answer, either.

Just for the record, also, I ain't a moonbat. I'm a red-state Republican of almost 30 years' standing who has a little love affair going with the rule of law.

What does this have to do with anything? The question is whether the administration broke the law with respect to warrants and informing the appropriate Congressional committees. If the best that they can offer up is that they chatted with a couple of friendly legislators and judges, isn't that tantamount to an admission of guilt?

Just another "Moonbat" here, though I'm a CPA, not a waiter at Applebee's. I'm just wondering if I can cheat on my taxes now as long as I "brief" the court while I'm doing so. I see a nice new legal precedent here.

The arrogant way you look down on others is painful. Although I'm a physician, career air force "moonbat", I'd love to prepare your next meal at Applebee's. My treat and I promise a special surprise.
Points have been made: Informing doesn't mean approval much less legal warrants. We don't know how appalling the truth really is because it's all double-special secret.

The only thing I'll add here is that some FISA judges did raise a stink. U.S. District Judge James Robertson resigned in December of '05 in protest. Another, FISA court Presiding Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, brought up the issue in 2004. She thought they were using information obtained illegally by the NSA to get a warrant from FISA. "What I've heard some of the judges say is they feel they've participated in a Potemkin court."

Also, they weren't told about the NSA program until 2005 when it began in 2001.

Now, who wants ribblets?

Lawyer moonbat here, but it doesn't take 33 years of practice to recognize the post hoc nature of this argument. This is an argument created by a public relations firm, not by a competent attorney. I suggest you try a nice glass of hot milk and try again.

het conf. yankee...what flavor is that kool-aid you're guzzlin'?

Hear, hear. "were notified of" is not the same thing as "granted a warrant for." All this stuff -- NSA warrantless wiretapping, FBI phone-record gathering, NSA phone-record gathering -- needs to land before a judge without further delay.

Apparently, real experts who actually know what the program was (none of the citics do) tend to differ from your opinion somewhat uniformly.

The Department of Justice, White House Counsel, NSA Inspector General and General Counsel and two Attorney's General apparently maintain the position that warrants were not needed as the obtained statutory authorization to support the President's inherent constitutional powers to conduct foreign intelligence surveillance in a time of war (PDF, pages 17-18):

The President’s exercise of his constitutional authority to conduct warrantless wartime electronic surveillance of the enemy, as confirmed and supplemented by stature in the AUMF, is fully consistent with the requirements of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). 5 FISA is a critically important tool in the War on Terror. The United States makes full use of the authorities available under FISA to gather foreign intelligence information, including authorities to intercept communications, conduct physical searches, and install and use pen registers and trap and trace devices. While FISA establishes certain procedures that must be followed for these authorities to be used (procedures that usually involve applying for an obtaining an order from a special court), FISA also expressly contemplates that a later legislative enactment could authorize electronic surveillance outside the procedures set forth in FISA itself. The AUMF constitutes precisely such and enactment. To the extent that thee is any ambiguity on this point, the canon of constitutional avoidance requires that such ambiguity be resolved in favor of the president’s authority to conduct the communications intelligence activities he has described. Finally, if FISA could not be read to allow the President to allow the President to authorize the NSA activities during the current congressionally authorized armed conflict with al Qaeda, FISA would be unconstitutional as applied in this narrow context.

The Administration doesn't want the program go through the public court system because the findings of such a trial, specifically which part of FISA would be deemed unconstitutional, might give away the essential characteristics of the program that the government seems to think makes it effective. How soon you forget that the full FISA Court, in addition to the 2 individual judges that have been notified since 2001, was briefed upon this program months ago and they have not raised any apparent objections. Some might certainly argue that a closed meeting objection would go unheard and unnoticed, but that is hardly likely. The judges would not likely make public statements, but they may resign as a form of protest .No judges have resigned since the briefing, though one resigned before being briefed. Nor has there been any indication that the program has been modified or tinkered with since the briefing, which would suggest that the program was above board without revision.

People need to get past the misguided notion that secret intelligence should be conducted in public view, and that warrants are required for all kinds of surveillance. They clearly are not. Warrants are required for most (by no means all) criminal cases, and certainly do not apply to foreign intelligence gathering in a time of war. Of course, when you place your faith in a media and a liberal punditry that can’t understand that communications intercept between two countries is by definition international and not “domestic spying,” I can’t expect you to get but so much of the rest of it correct, either.

So, now your whole premise has been blown out of the water and you'll have people from Daou coming in all day to remind you of the weakness of your argument. You might as well go fishing and live to blog your nonsense another day.

Let's recap, shall we? 2 of the 11 FISA judges were briefed about the "Total Information Awareness" program the Bush administration has put into place. We have no idea how much information they were given, only that Orrin Hatch as said "None raised any objection, as far as I know." We do know that every person who has been briefed has been sworn to secrecy. It's illegal for any person briefed on this program to breath a word about the details to anyone, even staff members, making oversight and research into the details of the program an impossibility.

Sorry Orrin Hatch won't make this go away.

There we go, the old "in times of war" canard. It didn't take long for you to bring up that all-purpose talking point did it? Now that we've got a very convenient open-ended war on the tactic known as terrorism, we can scrap the constitution. You people are the real danger to the republic.

"The Department of Justice, White House Counsel, NSA Inspector General and Two Attorneys General apparently maintain the position that warrants were not needed as the [sic] obtained statutory authorization to support the President's inherent constitutional powers to conduct foreign surveillence in a time of war [ham-fisted emphasis omitted]."

Another moonbat lawyer here, but isn't this the logical equivilent of "its legal because we say it is"? So the same people accused of breaking the law say they didn't, and that's enough for you? Is it because they have such a flawless record of being right all the time? I guess by that same logic, when Nixon denied any connection to Watergate, or when Clinton said "I did not have sex with that woman" you just said "okay, that's enough for me, case closed."

And more importantly, the quote above says "conduct foreign surveillence." How does this relate to the compilation of a database of every phone call made in the US, including domestic to domestic?

"The Department of Justice, White House Counsel, NSA Inspector General and Two Attorneys General apparently maintain the position that warrants were not needed as the [sic] obtained statutory authorization to support the President's inherent constitutional powers to conduct foreign surveillence in a time of war [ham-fisted emphasis omitted]."

Another moonbat lawyer here, but isn't this the logical equivilent of "its legal because we say it is"? So the same people accused of breaking the law say they didn't, and that's enough for you? Is it because they have such a flawless record of being right all the time? I guess by that same logic, when Nixon denied any connection to Watergate, or when Clinton said "I did not have sex with that woman" you just said "okay, that's enough for me, case closed."

And more importantly, the quote above says "conduct foreign surveillence." How does this relate to the compilation of a database of every phone call made in the US, including domestic to domestic?

It's illegal for any person briefed on this program to breath a word about the details to anyone, even staff members, making oversight and research into the details of the program an impossibility.

Utter rubbish. As stated before, this program had oversight from multiple layers of government lawyers beholden to the American people and the Constitution, not the Bush Administration. While you could certainly suspect the appointed lawyers of the White House Counsels Office and the appointed Attorney Generals, you cannot explain away the career Justice Department legal corps that were here before Bush, and will be hear long afterward. By your warped reasoning, they threw away all ethics at precisely the moment George W. Bush was sworn into office. Nor does this paranoid approach of yours account for the career lawyers of the NSA Inspector Generals office and General Counsels office, two groups of legal experts specifically versed in this sort of law, that exist to make sure that the agency does not run afoul of the Constitution. Nor does it account for the silence of the FISA judges and Members of the House and Senate who knew of this program. Surely, if they thought this was such a grave constitutional infraction, the media would be more than willing t expose it to the light of day in a live press conference at the time and place of their choosing. But no, you don’t give them credit for having any integrity at all.

You also purposefully overlook (as do your cronies in the media) that there is in fact a series of whistleblower statutes to even cover top secret programs such as this, which provides legal mechanisms for almost anyone to appeal a program they felt was illegal, including the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act of 1998.

Your “big theory” on the left seems to revolve around the idea that the entire federal government is populated by people that will run roughshod over the Constitution at the slightest opportunity or provocation, and are swayed by the powers of BushCo like no other President before him.

So I find myself being forced to choose between career civil servants that owe no particular allegiance to the Bush White House, and those conspiracy theorists that predicate their entire premise on the thought that when President Bush was inaugurated, every career civil servant chucked the Constitution and swore and oath to the Dark Side.

I’m sorry, but I’m not willing to make that incredible leap into Evil America Fantasyland, even if you are.

If you read the entire article being discussed, it includes:

Asked if the judges somehow approved the operations, Hatch said, "That is not their position, but they were informed."

They clearly did not approve or Hatch would have stated it instead of tiptoeing around it. If the administration has their way, we will never know how earnestly they may have disagreed.

The vicious circle of all this is that those who are informed of these programs (judges, intelligence committee members) are pledged to never ever talk about these programs to anyone, under serious threat of punishment. Those that do not break the secrecy are then used as pawns in the disingenuous "We informed the proper channels" justification.

Since you addressed your comment specifically to mine, Conf Yank, I'll address my response specifically to you.

I Am Not A Lawyer. However, I infer from the Supreme Court's ruling in the Youngstown Co. v Sawyer case that the administration is on very, very thin constitutional ice here, wartime or no.

As I read the ruling, it seems to be saying:

-- If president claims a wartime authority Congress hasn't legislated on one way or the other, that's OK.

-- If president claims a wartime authority that Congress has specifically authorized, that's definitely OK.

-- If president claims a wartime authority that Congress has expressly forbidden him, it might, possibly, still be OK, but he's going to have a very heavy burden of proof.

I see no way claims based on Article II or the AUMF meet that burden, and I have yet to read a convincing argument that they do.

Kind of like saying if I tell you I'm going to break the law by robbing your house before I actually do it, that somehow makes it legal.

CY "cherry-picked" his favorable quotes from the story of course. Read the whole thing. It's more informative than this highly edited post.

The Department of Justice, White House Counsel, NSA Inspector General and General Counsel and two Attorney's General apparently maintain the position that warrants were not needed

Ohmygosh! The Bush administration is arguing that what the Bush administration is doing is legal? What a controversial stance for the Bush administration to take on the Bush administration's activities.

This is obviously a huge concept for you to fathom, jpe, but the tens of thousands of employees that work for the executive branch are not automatically part of the Bush Administration.

Yankee's at it again. The only "expert" to weigh in on the subject that can be presumed to know all of the details is Alberto Gonzalez(sp?). And we all know what an unbiased, law respecting "expert" he is. I'll say it one more time, give all the details to a federal judge, in a court proceeding and let HIM weigh in with a judgement on the legality of all of these programs. Because right now all I'm hearing from the administration is "trust us" and "It's legal becaus we say it is". I heard those same two arguments from the Nixon administration over essencially the same issue back about the time I graduated from high school. That's where the FISA law came from in the first place.
And just for the record, we were at war at the time with an actual enemy, as opposed to a tactic.

"How soon you forget that the full FISA Court, in addition to the 2 individual judges that have been notified since 2001,"

Where did you see that? Two members were briefed in 2001. They were not told everything and were not allowed to tell anyone else what they were told.

"No judges have resigned since the briefing, though one resigned before being briefed."

Obviously some reading comprehension issues here. The article you linked to said one resigned in December of 2005. Last time I checked 2001 comes before 2005.

The idea that the AUMF authorizes this does not pass legal muster.

And just for the record, we were at war at the time with an actual enemy, as opposed to a tactic.

Posted by IaintBacchus at May 17, 2006 12:59 PM

Just curious as to how a "Tactic" flew two planes into the trade center, another into the Pentagon and made a smoking pit in PA? To me, they were hard-core blood thirsty enemy troops in a holy war against us, as in our IDEALS and the way that we live.

I'm not for throwing out the constitution but we are at it with people with no morals, the NSA wants to see who is calling whom because they know of certain terrorist cells/locations. Big deal. It doesn't infringe on my rights to call who I want in any way. If they come knocking on my door and ask some questions they will find out very soon I have no connections what so ever. If all of this helps to stop another 9-11, where's the problem?

Ever get the feeling that no matter what you say, people are going to hear what they want to hear?

IaintBacchus makes the assertion that I only trust the word of Attorney Genral Alberto Gonzalez, even when I specifically exempted appointees in the White House Counsel's Office and the Attorney Generals themselves. I stated:

While you could certainly suspect the appointed lawyers of the White House Counsels Office and the appointed Attorney Generals, you cannot explain away the career Justice Department legal corps that were here before Bush, and will be hear long afterward. By your warped reasoning, they threw away all ethics at precisely the moment George W. Bush was sworn into office. Nor does this paranoid approach of yours account for the career lawyers of the NSA Inspector Generals office and General Counsels office, two groups of legal experts specifically versed in this sort of law, that exist to make sure that the agency does not run afoul of the Constitution. Nor does it account for the silence of the FISA judges and Members of the House and Senate who knew of this program. Surely, if they thought this was such a grave constitutional infraction, the media would be more than willing t expose it to the light of day in a live press conference at the time and place of their choosing. But no, you don’t give them credit for having any integrity at all.

I also pointed out that any one of the people familiar with the program could file a protest against it and be protected by whistleblower laws, and yet, we've seen none of that, either.

Of course, IaintBacchus likes to hide behind the silly wordgame that we are at war with a tactic instead of al Qaeda and other Islamic terrorists, so perhaps that should guide how seriously you should take into account his views.

Adn yes, john Gillnitz you do have some reading comprehension issues. Whether it was the two judges who have known about the program the entire time, or one of the ten that was briefed about the program in early 2006, any or all of them could have easily resigned in protest from the FISA court without any sort of penalty, and still retained their federal judgeships. They would face no significant penalties for such a protest resignation, and yet, not one has resigned in the months since the briefing. A reasonable person might infer they they therefore had no strong objection to the program, and might even take the leap to suggest that perhaps, they had no objections at all.

To boil down CY's argument, it's " I trust my government. If they say it's legal, that's OK by me. Involving courts and judges an' such is just overkill."
The idea that an open ended conflict justifies the trashing of the balance of powers, is really breath taking. It's tragic how little it takes for Americans to trash the Constitution.

To sum up the destruction of this articles' arguments:

a) telling a couple of judges you're doing something, with no possibility of them doing something about it, is not oversight!

b) those members of Congress who were notified, were also specifically not allowed to tell anyone else about it. This is not oversight either!

c) the Executive Branch is not intended by the Constitution to be the only Branch able to oversee itself. That's the whole point of checks and balances.

Why is it so difficult for Confederate Yankee to see this?

"you can expect some foul language and unsupported contentions from those bitter souls killing time until their next shift at Applebee's."

The suspense is killing me! Can you please bring these people on before my next shift starts? If not I'll have to wander over to LGF for some real abuse.

Surely we all know by now - especially you, CY - that you will never sway the (?thinking?) from the Moonbat Left. Their minds are made up.

I still believe this should be presented to the Supreme Court, taking it first through both houses of Congress. Guess what! The weak-willed Donks will not vote for it to be taken before the SCOTUS. They know what the outcome will be.

One person will vote to take it before the SCOTUS - Russ Feingold. He's an idiot anyway, with little or nothing to lose.

When the SCOTUS rules that all actions of the Bush administration are in keeping with the U.S. Constitution, however, the loons on the Left will just claim that the Court is under Bush's control too.

Ya can't win with these fools.

Retired Navy, your handle explains it all. None of you squids have ever understood war or how to fight it. That's what we have always been for.
Religious fundimentalists flew planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Bush did not go to war on religious fundimentalists. He continued to pander to religious fundimentalists in order to get reelected.
Saudi Arabians flew airplanes into the world trade center. Bush didn't go to war with Saudi Arabia because the royal family has given him and his family billions over the years.
Al Quada, at the order of Bin Laden flew airplanes into the world trade center. Bush hasn't done anything to catch Bin Laden because he needs a boogie man to keep sheep like you scared so you'll continue to vote for him.
Not one single Iraqi was invloved in the planning or execution of 9/11. But Bush did go to war with them, because he thought they would be an easy target and he needed a successful war in order to get reelected.
And now he's using the "War on Terror", which he isn't even fighting, as an excuse for policies that would have made Nixon or even Stalin blush.
The United States in not now and has never fought a "War on Terrorism". You can't fight a war against a military tactic. And as soon as Bush called it a "War on Terror" he elevated a group of international criminals to the status of enemy warriors. They are not warriors. They are fundimentalist sociopaths who need to be hunted down, captured, tried before a legitimate court for mass murder and punished. I do not favor the death penalty for these men only because they think they are going to heaven for their atrocities. I see no reason to allow that when they can spend many years in solitary confinement contemplating what they have done.
Even more foolish than your "War on Terror" myth is the "I have nothing to hide" myth. We have no reasonable expectation that this government will use a nation wide all enclusive database only to go after "terrorists". If you are retired from the Navy you have to be old enough to remember CoIntelPro. Nixon wasn't using national intellegence assets solely for "national security". He was using them to attack his political enemies. Why should any of us believe that Bush is using even greater assets, with zero judicial or congressional oversite, and in apearant violation of the law, solely to prosecute an imaginary war on an intangable concept?

laintBacchus?

You are a flaming idiot!

Yankee, The Justice department, CIA and Military have all been loosing carreer professionals for five years precisely because when they object to a policy are not being listened to. Gonzalez's torture rational for instance was vetted and rejected by DoJ lawyers twice. And then implemented. And let's not forget what Richard Clarke had to say after he quit. But the opinions of anyone but a federal judge is irrelevent. Bush will never let this get into a court. Domestic spying without a warrant is illegal and even Scalia won't be able to say any different if it ever gets that far.
Now as to "word games". What do you call the War on Terror if not a word game. It isn't a war and we haven't actually attacked a "terrorist" since early 2002 in Afghanistan. If Al Queda, et. al. had been treated as the international criminals that they are, they would all have been dead or in jail 2-3 years ago.
Now you can resort back to calling me names and dismissing me out of hand because I don't agree with you and, hence don't know what I'm talking about.

LOL. The moonbats are in the house!

laintBacchus:

In addition to being an idiot, you also know nothing about the causes for reductions in the Intelligence agencies. The NSA, for example, had more than 25K professionals employed there when I retired. They were offering early retirements and retirement bonuses because we had too damn many people onboard.

The same has been true of the CIA, DIA and the military. Too many people were there with skills no longer needed. Not too much need for Soviet specialists after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Many folks had a choice of being trained in some skill that was needed or opt for retirement - sometimes early retirement.

BTW, moonbats ... there IS NO DOMESTIC SPYING. There is no evidence of it, and Congressional members of the Intelligence committees know it has not been conducted without warrant.

Just how, dim one, would you have rounded up all those international criminals and presecuted them?

You are living in a dream world.

You also need to brush up on your spelling a bit. Of course, I realize it is hard to stay on task while hyperventilating.

And you have the nerve to criticize the Navy?

You are completely clueless.

And Confed Yank, contrary to what you claim, all departments in the executive branch are part of the Bush Administration. That is what the President does. He administers the executive branch. The NSA the DOJ the Pentagon are all part of the Executive branch. Now if counsel to the Judiciary commitee weighed in, you might have an argument, or if the Supreme Court has weighed in, or if the 4th Amendment didn't exist.

And just a little help to you. When you have explicit language as exists in the 4th Amendment, and you have explicit language in a law like FISA, arguments rarely survive in the face of plain language that stretch a constitutional interpretation of executive powers qua commander in chief, and stretch a reading of a congressional act granting certain war powers to the President.

What is most disturbing is how many people actually defend this program, when every REAL Republican I know, (you know the kind that have old money and fear government intrusion into their lives and the market and have libertarian leanings) is totally freaked out about the power grab Bush has made for the executive branch.

"not one has resigned in the months since the briefing."

You said all FISA judges were breifed 2001. Incorrect. You are still saying none have resigned since finding out. One resigned in December of 2005 a couple of days after finding out that he had not been told the full extent of the program. Those are the facts.

"A reasonable person might infer they they therefore had no strong objection to the program, and might even take the leap to suggest that perhaps, they had no objections at all."

A reasonable person might spend a couple of seconds on Google and find out: "Five former judges on the nation's most secretive court, including one who resigned in apparent protest over President Bush's domestic eavesdropping, urged Congress on Tuesday to give the court a formal role in overseeing the surveillance program." NYT, March 29, 2006

"BTW, moonbats ... there IS NO DOMESTIC SPYING."

Just keep chanting it, dude. 2+2=5, 2+2=5, 2+2=5, 2+2-5... With the size of potential settlments of class action law suits the telcom companies know they have just perked the ears of every lawyer in the US. If you think the Repubs poll numbers are low now just wait until the general public starts figuring out the extent of the snooping.

I see the interloping liberals are being far more civil in their discourse than the upright wingnuts. Maybe Peter Daou should have a warning on his page about the language and vitriol on yours.

"Just curious as to how a "Tactic" flew two planes into the trade center, another into the Pentagon and made a smoking pit in PA?"

Well, you're not attacking a nation, a race or a religion. Your vague and ever shifting definition of terrorism usually highlights the tactics used by people it labels your enemy.

Of course, those same tactics are used by your allies, so you're not even fighting that, really.

John Gillnitz:

"BTW, moonbats ... there IS NO DOMESTIC SPYING."

Just keep chanting it, dude. 2+2=5, 2+2=5, 2+2=5, 2+2-5... With the size of potential settlments of class action law suits the telcom companies know they have just perked the ears of every lawyer in the US. If you think the Repubs poll numbers are low now just wait until the general public starts figuring out the extent of the snooping.

You, too, are a total numbskull. You do not know how these collection programs actually work, nor do you know squat about all the safeguards in place to protect the Amercian public and individual freedoms.

You read all the misinformation in the Press, and you start salivating and hyperventilating, pitting hope against hope that this will be Bush's undoing.

Why don't you go out and do something actually constructive? Because you are one of those without ideas or vision or imagination or creativity. You are wasting your time.

I spent 36 years working with these Intelligence gathering programs. You have only read press releases and misinformation.

I know from experience how these things actually work. You know nothing.

Case closed.

"I'm right and you're wrong" "You know nothing" "case closed" are not compelling arguments.

And with all due repect to your 36 years of service in government intelligence, that gives you absolutely zero authority on constitutional jurisprudence and statutory interpretation. And it shows in your arguments.

FISA is explicit and contemplates any surveillance on an American citizen related to foreign intelligence gathering requires a warrant. It was amended to include intelligence gathering on foreign terrorists, not just states, as a part of the the Patriot act.

Thus Congress purposefully dealt with this very issue in the Patriot Act which was passed AFTER the grant of war powers on which the Bush administration relies for its authority to violate FISA.

FISA was also legislated to be as expansive as 4th amendment Constitutional limits allow, so claiming these searches/ surveillences are constitutional is a tough argument to advance.

Therfore, an argument that a grant of war powers by congress included the authority to spy is just plain wrong. Nor can you argue that such powers are inherent in the President as commander in Chief, not when the 4th amendment is so clear.

And this is to say nothing of the high probablility that this NSA program harvests data that is purely domestic. FISA is not an issue there. The 4th Amendment and the Supremacy Clause are, and there is simply no constitutional argument that the powers of the executive branch, even in war time, allows it to search or survey American citizens, talking to other American citizens, without a warrant.

I know from 7 years of experience in con law how these things actually work. You know nothing.

Case closed.

First, while I can't speak for Peter Daou, I can suggest a way of determining the purpose of his linking. Actually, you can help me out here because I have always been curious. Are the ones Peter links to your best posts? Your worst? The ones with the most trackbacks? How do you suppose this particular post made the cut? Does this post represent your blog well or not?

Second, I have never seen a more pathetic fake than the poster who calls himself "retired spy." Sure you are. And I work at Applebees.

And no one is "pitting hope against hope that this will be Bush's undoing." The guy is already toast. His ability to govern is gone. People are legitimately concerned about their privacy and are legitimately concerned about a branch of government which feels it is beyond the reproach of the other two.

"Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions." - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

I think this might come close to summing up why Peter Daou has a "Blogs from the Right" section on his page. Many of us "moonbats" actually enjoy chewing on an issue from many angles. It's part of the concept of "reason," I think.

Oh, and not to be too much of a snipe, but rather than "LOL! The moonbats are here," why not welcome a different perspective? Why is it so scary to actually reason through multiple facets of an issue? If you never heard an opposing position, how can you ever really feel confident in your own stance?

I hated it when my ninth grade social sciences teacher decided in the second half of that year to focus on critical thinking...It was as if she came back from a conference held over winter break that radically changed her pedagological philosophy. I was forced to actually THINK through the words I put on paper...I had to DEFEND my statements with rational arguments. And I even had to take into account the VIEWS OF OTHERS!! Whew..it was rough..And my approach to the world was never the same again. Thank you, Mrs. Kennedy, where ever you are today!

I don't believe that I claimed to be an expert in constitutional law, lazerlou, but, as CY has noted in the past, some of us are capable of reading simple English - especially when it is found in case law.

While you moonbats are peeing on your shoes, AT&T, Verizon and Bell South claim they provided NOTHING to the NSA in the form of database information. And what did the NSA actually request from these three telcos and Qwest? They requested that those four telcos NOT DESTROY existing customer database information that may be required for investigating known connectivity between known al Qaeda operatives and persons residing inside the United States. Looks like your credibility stops at the door of misinformation published by USA Today, Newsweek, the NYT and some others. Where is the real evidence? You have NONE.

As for case law, lazerlou, CY noted the case Maryland vs. Smith (1979). It was the ruling of the SCOTUS that it was not unlawful to release telco records to the government.

Ya want to resurrect Youngstown too? I already know that you have done that elsewhere. Or was someone else using your moniker?

I don't give a crap what you think, Seattle Slough. You are far too insignificant to matter. I can laugh back at you losers each month when my federal annuity check - probably more than you earn for full-time work - is deposited in my bank account. You see, I actually served MY country for more than 36 years. What have YOU done? Whine?

Gotta go now. Don't wish to discuss things with those incapable of understanding. Got some gardening to do. There are some pesky slugs there too.

Not to snipe myself here Jason from NH "I hated it when my ninth grade social sciences teacher decided in the second half of that year to focus on critical thinking"
but some of us learned that much earlier in life than High School. Your Dauo Report is nothing but an echo chamber. That Mrs. Kennedy that was your teacher, she wasn't Teddy's mummie now was she? Cause that would explain your LACK of thinking skills.

tap-tap-tap ...

Is this thing working?

So now we 'moonbats' are treated to the spectacle of right-wingers, who so pride themselves on their common sense, living in the "real world" and "practical reality", and love of country and constitution:

a) avoiding the subject of warrants
b) attempting to claim that people in the Executive Branch aren't under the Bush administration's control
c) attempting to claim that notifiying some few members of other branches, without letting them tell others or do anything, is oversight
d) attempting to claim that the NSA needs no oversight, it's word can be taken at face value
e) when these facts are brought up, utterly ignoring them, and switching to emotional arguments
e) attempting to claim that, anyway, this is all necessary because terrorists are so baaaaaaddd!! Mommy they scare me!

This last baffles me utterly. Where's the manliness? We go along for 200 years, face unprecedented World Wars, unrest within and without, recessions, face down the Soviets with the stakes being nuclear armageddon of all humanity - all while saving the constitution.

But a bunch of criminals who can't even meet us on a battlefield have you so frightened, that we're supposed to just sell out all the freedoms and rights that our parents fought and DIED for?

But these are the ways in which you get twisted, in continuing to defend this administration's policies.

Aren't you getting tired of making excuses for Bush? He's a grown-up man. He deserves the fallout for his failures. You do yourselves a disservice by continuing to give him outs for his actions.

a) avoiding the subject of warrants
b) attempting to claim that people in the Executive Branch aren't under the Bush administration's control
c) attempting to claim that notifiying some few members of other branches, without letting them tell others or do anything, is oversight
d) attempting to claim that the NSA needs no oversight, it's word can be taken at face value
e) when these facts are brought up, utterly ignoring them, and switching to emotional arguments
e) attempting to claim that, anyway, this is all necessary because terrorists are so baaaaaaddd!! Mommy they scare me!

And some wonder where the term Moonbat came from?

Insofar as you surely know this Jim Guy's IP address and other pertinent data, CY, maybe he will consent to having you pass that info on to al Qaeda. He's obviously not afraid of all those baaaaaaadd terrorists - as long as he can hide behind his fantasy-generating keyboard.

That OK with you Jim Boy?

Before agreeing to that, however, please explain the validity of the accusations made in each one of those entries on your itemized list.

Man oh man CY, I don't know if the crazy blog money is worth this deluge of battery.

Tob

I know from experience how these things actually work. You know nothing.
Posted by: Retired Spy at May 17, 2006 09:46 PM

Well, gosh! That convinced me. Sorry, RS, but you have to do better then that. Unless you have direct knowledge of the specific program you are in the same boat as us. I don't think the NSA program is business as usual so knowledge of how things used to work doesn't apply.

FISA judges were briefed

FISA judges issued warrants

OK, even for a conservative, you should be able to see the difference.

For all the difference it made the administration may as well briefed the judges seat cushion and hat rack too !! They would have made the same amount of meaningful feedback.

I DO have specific knowledge of specific current programs, Gillnutz. You have no first-hand knowledge of anything or you would not be making such ignorant accusations.

Do I give a flying flip what you think? Absolutely not - except that fools like you are dangerous.

This last baffles me utterly. Where's the manliness? We go along for 200 years, face unprecedented World Wars, unrest within and without, recessions, face down the Soviets with the stakes being nuclear armageddon of all humanity - all while saving the constitution.

WWII

-Phones were monitered
-Japanese Americans were re-located into armed camps
-Rationing was in place for just about everything
-Drafting people into the military was common
-invading forign countries became common
-innocent people were bombed by us
-News orginizations were controlled as to what they could put out by the govt.
-Americans UNDERSTOOD why this was happenening then, why not now?