Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Bush's "Defense" of Spying & Why It is CRAP

Here are Bush's "defenses" (if ya can even call them that) of NSA spying w/o warrants: 1) "We've got to be fast on our feet, quick to detect and prevent." Bush said the NSA eavesdropping program lets the govt move faster than the standard practice of seeking a crt authorized warrant under the (FISA)Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. 2) The prez said the authority to bypass the crt derived from the Constitution and Congress' vote authorizing the use of military force after 9/11 when a congressional joint resolution passed Sept 14/01, that allows the prez to use whatever force he deems necessary to stop acts of terrorism. Both answers are complete and utter crap. Here's why: 1) The FISA of 1978 set up a secret fedrl crt that must approve requests for the NSA to conduct surveillance against anyone in the USA suspected of being an "agent of a foreign power," such as a terrorist group BUT there is no substantial likelihood that the surveillance will acquire the contents of any communication to which a US person is a party (so, average US citizens are exempt from surveillance & protected by 4th Amend). When you need a wiretap, the FISA allows you to apply for 1. When you need it yesterday, FISA allows you to place the tap immediately and retroactively clear it with a judge 72 hrs later. So, they could have started spying on people immediately and then asked for a warrant, and the FISA crt is as big a rubber stamp as you can possibly get w/in the fedrl judiciary b/c from 1979 through 2004 it granted 18,761 warrants and rejected 5. Fewer than 100 had to be modified. 2) The Sept 14/01 vote gave Bush the power to throw away the Bill of Rights and every other law? Don't think so: Please visit Glenn Greenwald's post called "The new "constitutional" excuse for warrantless eavesdropping on Americans" and others knew about this and gave their ok?: Read the LATimes article and see what Senators and Reps have to say about this. The only person claiming everybody knew and was on board?-- The Big Dick Cheney. And what about these lil gems from Bush himself about wiretaps? (hat tip JLFinch): 1) When he was in NYC in April 04: "Now, by the way, any time you hear the US govt talking about wiretap, it requires-a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution." AND this 2) When he was in WI in July 04: "A couple of things that are very important for you to understand about the Patriot Act. First of all, any action that takes place by law enforcement requires a court order. In other words, the govt can't move on wiretaps or roving wiretaps without getting a court order." So W... were ya lying then or are you lying now?Here's how we know you're lying: Your lips are moving.
Posted by Tina :: 12:02 AM :: 3 Comments:

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