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I think you just came up with the Republican platform for 2008....
If the ends justify the means, why isn't (or why shouldn't) the government going house-to-house in largely Muslim neighborhoods in unannounced raids? Or, better yet, why not just inter all Muslims? That would certainly seem to be a reasonable step towards containing the domestic Islamo-fascist threat. And if the existence of a conflict justifies governmental subversion of basic cons utional principles, there shouldn't be any problem with doing either of those things in the spirit of prevailing in the conflict. Perhaps the government should just order that all Mosques in the United States be closed. Or maybe it should prohibit the publication of pro-Muslim/pro-al Queda literature.
Really.
I think you just came up with the Republican platform for 2008....
August 19, 2006
Experts Fault Reasoning in Surveillance Decision
By ADAM LIPTAK
Even legal experts who agreed with a federal judge’s conclusion on Thursday that a National Security Agency surveillance program is unlawful were distancing themselves from the decision’s reasoning and rhetoric yesterday.
They said the opinion overlooked important precedents, failed to engage the government’s major arguments, used circular reasoning, subs uted passion for analysis and did not even offer the best reasons for its own conclusions.
Discomfort with the quality of the decision is almost universal, said Howard J. Bashman, a Pennsylvania lawyer whose Web log provides comprehensive and nonpartisan reports on legal developments.
“It does appear,” Mr. Bashman said, “that folks on all sides of the spectrum, both those who support it and those who oppose it, say the decision is not strongly grounded in legal authority.”
The main problems, scholars sympathetic to the decision’s bottom line said, is that the judge, Anna Diggs Taylor, relied on novel and questionable cons utional arguments when more straightforward statutory ones were available.
She ruled, for instance, that the program, which eavesdrops without court permission on international communications of people in the United States, violated the First Amendment because it might have chilled the speech of people who feared they might have been monitored.
That ruling is “rather innovative” and “not a particularly good argument,” Jack Balkin, a law professor at Yale who believes the program is illegal, wrote on his Web log.
Judge Taylor also ruled that the program violated the Fourth Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches and seizures. But scholars said she failed to take account of the so-called “special needs” exception to the amendment’s requirement that the government obtain a warrant before engaging in some surveillance unrelated to routine law enforcement. “It’s just a few pages of general ruminations about the Fourth Amendment, much of it incomplete and some of it simply incorrect,” Orin S. Kerr, a law professor at George Washington University who believes the administration’s legal justifications for the program are weak, said of Judge Taylor’s Fourth Amendment analysis on a Web log called the Volokh Conspiracy.
Judge Taylor gave less attention to the more modest statutory argument that has been widely advanced by critics of the program. They say that it violates a 1978 law requiring warrants from a secret court and that neither a 2001 Congressional authorization to use military force against Al Qaeda nor the president’s cons utional authority allowed the administration to ignore the law. A recent Supreme Court decision strengthened that argument. Judge Taylor did not cite it.
Some scholars speculated that Judge Taylor, of the Federal District Court in Detroit, may have rushed her decision lest the case be consolidated with several others now pending in federal court in San Francisco or moved to a specialized court in Washington as contemplated by pending legislation. Judge Taylor heard the last set of arguments in the case a little more than a month ago.
The decision has been appealed, and legal scholars said Judge Taylor had done the American Civil Liberties Union, which represents the plaintiffs, few favors beyond handing it a victory. On the other hand, they added, the appeals court is bound to examine the legal arguments in the case afresh in any event.
Indeed, Cass R. Sunstein, a law professor at the University of Chicago, predicted that the plaintiffs would win the case on appeal, but not for the reasons Judge Taylor gave.
“The chances that the Bush program will be upheld are not none, but slim,” Professor Sunstein said. “The chances that this judge’s analysis will be adopted are also slim.”
Eugene Volokh, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, who presides over the Volokh Conspiracy Web log and says he is skeptical of the legality of the wiretapping program, called the decision “not just ill-reasoned, but rhetorically ill-conceived.”
“If I were the A.C.L.U.,” Professor Volokh said, “I would rather have a decision that came across as more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger and that was as deliberate, meticulous, thoughtful and studiously impartial as possible.”
Anthony Romero, the executive director of the A.C.L.U., said Judge Taylor’s decision represented vindication of established limits on the scope of executive authority.
“Ultimately,” Mr. Romero said, “any doubts about the decision will be taken up on appeal by sitting federal judges rather than pundits or commentators.”
Judge Taylor, a longtime trial court judge who was appointed by President Jimmy Carter, enjoys a good reputation among lawyers who have appeared before her, according to anonymous comments collected by the Almanac of the Federal Judiciary.
“Lawyers interviewed rated Taylor high in legal ability,” the almanac concluded. The eight quoted comments ranged from enthusiastic (“She is smart as ”) to lukewarm (“She is competent”).
Supporters of the program, disclosed by The New York Times in December, suggested that Judge Taylor’s opinion was as good a way to lose as any.
“It’s hard to exaggerate how bad it is,” said John R. Schmidt, a Justice Department official in the Clinton administration who says the program is legal. He pointed to Judge Taylor’s failure to cite what he called several pertinent decisions, including one from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review in 2002 that said it took for granted that Congress “could not encroach on the president’s cons utional power” to conduct warrantless surveillance to obtain foreign intelligence.
The decision also failed to cite a Supreme Court decision in June helpful to the plaintiffs, a group of journalists, scholars, lawyers and nonprofit organizations. The decision, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, struck down the administration’s plans to try prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, as war criminals. It was widely interpreted as a rebuke to the administration’s expansive conception of executive power.
“After Hamdan,” Professor Sunstein said, “this program is not easy to defend.”
Professor Balkin said there was a rushed quality to Judge Taylor’s decision, but he added that her reason for moving fast may have been the laudable one of assuring that more than one appeals court would have the opportunity to pass on the legality of the program.
Martin S. Lederman, a former Justice Department official who believes the program is illegal, said he found the contrast between Justice John Paul Stevens’s approach in Hamdan and Judge Taylor’s in the wiretapping case telling.
“Justice Stevens was criticized for not including sound bites and sweeping cons utional interpretation,” Mr. Lederman said. Judge Taylor’s decision, by contrast, he said, “was meant for headlines.”
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20060817/D8JI9A281.html
Appointed as a federal judge in 1979 - thank you mr peanut farmer!
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/a...=2006608070381
Those who know her claim she will not include her liberal bias in her decision.
Year, right!
Goes hand in glove with the liberal stance of enabling terrorists to do their best to kill Americans.
Liberals tied the hands of the military from fighting the war in Vietnam as it should have and they are now tying the current administration's hands and preventing them from fighting the global war on terrorism.
Yep liberals do love their country - NOT! They whine, pi$$ on their legs, and moan about how ineffective the Bush administration is in fighting the global war on terrorism and then tie their hands to prevent them from doing whatever it takes to prevent the next 9/11.
Heres an awesome idea. Lets let the demonrats win control of the congress this year and then win control of the White House in 2008 and then when the terrorists strike this nation again in 2009 [less than a year after a demonrat is sworn in as president] killing tens of thousands of Americans, we can then lay the blame squarely at the feet of demonrats like they did with President Bush on 9/11.
We can even accuse demonrats of "knowing about the attack before it happened".
Who would expect anything less, from a Liberal Judge. . . That would be like expecting the ACLU to defend you right to bear arms!
Well, I find your definition of "reasonable" somewhat lacking.
However, I believe it is entirely reasonable to surveil telephone calls from suspected terrorists abroad (or domestically) when they call someone in the United States.
Why bug the phones?
We can just ask them what they are up to after we give them some more tours:
The Department of Homeland Security took a Muslim group with known past ties to terror organizations on a VIP tour of security operations at the nation's busiest airport at the same time British authorities were working to break up a plot to blow up U.S. airlines.
On June 21, a senior DHS official from Washington personally guided Muslim officials from the Council on American-Islamic Relations on a behind-the-scenes tour of Customs screening operations at O'Hare International Airport in response to CAIR complaints that Muslim travelers were being unfairly delayed as they entered the U.S. from abroad.
CAIR is a spin-off of the Islamic Association for Palestine, identified by two former FBI counterterrorism chiefs as a "front group" for the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas. Several CAIR leaders have been convicted on terror-related charges.
The founder of the Texas chapter of a highly influential U.S. Islamic lobby group was found guilty of supporting terrorism.
Ghassan Elashi, along with two brothers, was convicted in Dallas of channeling funds to a high-ranking official of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, Mousa Abu Marzook.
Elashi was a board member of the Texas chapter of the Washington, D.C.-based Council on American Islamic Relations -- the third CAIR figure to be convicted on federal terrorism charges since 9-11.
CAIR is a spin-off of the Richardson, Texas-based Islamic Association For Palestine, or IAP, which was founded by Marzook.
Former FBI counterterrorism chief Oliver Revell has called the IAF "a front organization for Hamas that engages in propaganda for Islamic militants."
During the airport tour, CAIR was taken on a walk through the point-of-entry, Customs stations, secondary screening and interview rooms. In addition, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents were asked to describe for CAIR representatives various features of the high-risk passenger lookout system.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/ar...TICLE_ID=51573
I don't have a problem with the Administration having to obtain a warrant, but only to the extent that it does not comprimise or delay, in any way, our efforts to protect the lives and interests of Americans and our allies.
Unfortunately, as with this particular Judge, political leanings and personalized interpretation of the laws is a factor in bypassing the warrant.
In light of the escalation of terrorism we don't have the luxury of allowing ourselves to be bridled by the political gamesmanship that surfaces when Judges put their personal feelings about an Administration above the interests of our National Security by rendering rulings that are without merit.
And again, as pointed out by several posters, no one has been able to say that they have personally been adversely affected by the warrantless wiretapping program.
What causes you to draw a line between telephone surveillance and door-to-door sweeps? Other than the quaint notion that people are en led to privacy and that the government should not intrude on that privacy in most instances, what is the real functional difference between my proposal and the NSA program? Effectively, each is aimed at rooting out potential terrorist plots and foiling them before they can be undertaken. Why is one reasonable in your mind and the other not? Your retort sounds a lot like an "I know it when I see it" approach to the reasonableness of warrantless searches. Should the distastefulness vel non of the program define its legality?
Last edited by FromWayDowntown; 08-19-2006 at 09:26 AM. Reason: missing "not"
Ruling Against Wiretaps Further Sharpens Partisan Divide
By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, August 19, 2006; A05
A federal judge's ruling that the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping is uncons utional set off a flurry of political responses yesterday, as Republicans tried to keep control of the national security debate amid signs that their own party's ranks may be breaking under the pressure of the Iraq war.
( the Repugs could have kept it all, but they started this ing Repug war and it's going to kill them. good riddance )
President Bush concluded a discussion on the economy with a challenge to Democrats, many of whom had hailed U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor's ruling that the NSA's wiretapping efforts violate both the Bill of Rights and federal law.
"Those who herald this decision simply do not understand the nature of the world in which we live," Bush said after meeting with his economic team at Camp David. "This country of ours is at war, and we must give those whose responsibility it is to protect the United States the tools necessary to protect this country in a time of war."
( ... says so-called man who is the most ignorant, befudlded, simple-minded mother er to be elected by The Great American Sheeple )
He then said that "it would be interesting to see . . . how other policymakers react."
Minutes later, under the headline "Dems Rejoice," the Republican National Committee illuminated those reactions, releasing the statements of eight Democrats -- including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), the 2004 presidential nominee -- all heralding the decision as a rebuke to the president.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee challenged Democratic candidates to "stand up in opposition to a liberal judge," while the RNC released an Internet advertisement painting the Democrats as soft on defense. The ad shows prominent Democrats decrying warrantless wiretapping, abusive interrogations, ballistic missile defense and the war in Iraq through the opening of a cave, meant to represent the vantage point of terrorists monitoring the opposition party.
"Democrats say they want to talk about national security and the war on terror . . . while terrorists are watching," the narrator intones.
( .... while terrists are murdering US military in Iraq placed there under false pretenses by the Repugs )
With that burst of activity, Republicans appeared ready to make Taylor's decision on wiretapping the 2006 equivalent of a Massachusetts judge's legalization of same-sex marriage in 2004: a rallying cry for the Republican base.
"They never miss an opportunity to play divisive politics on national security," said Rep. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "The one casualty Americans would accept in the war on terror is partisanship, and that's the one thing George Bush won't give up."
But with polls showing Republican voters more divided on security issues than Democrats are, it was unclear whether the strategy would work again.
"There is no consensus that Republicans are better on terrorism than the Democrats, as once was clearly the case," said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.
A Pew Research Center poll released Thursday found "no evidence that terrorism is weighing heavily on voters -- just 2 percent cite that as the issue they most want to hear candidates discuss, far fewer than the number mentioning education, gas prices, or health care." The center continued: "And while roughly a third of Americans (35 percent) say they are very concerned that if Democrats gain control of Congress, they will weaken terrorist defenses, even more (46 percent) express great concern that Republicans will involve the U.S. in too many overseas military missions if the GOP keeps its congressional majorities."
Republicans have done such a good job framing the invasion of Iraq as part of a "war on terror" that bad news from Baghdad is casting doubts on the anti-terrorism effort, Kohut said. Republican voters, meanwhile, are split on whether to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq, the poll found.
( oops, the Repug incompetence is always on display )
Reflecting these pressures, Republicans in swing districts are beginning to waver. In an interview from Israel yesterday, Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) said the political will of the United States is being stretched to the limit. He promised to offer a time frame for troop withdrawals when he returns next week from his 14th trip to Iraq.
"We have got to find a way to come to some kind of consensus, so we can do what's right for our country and what's right for the Iraqis," said Shays, an ardent supporter of the war who is in a political dogfight with his antiwar Democratic opponent. "We have to say 'This is the latest we will leave'
and be able to live with that."
( ok, this Repug is ready to cut-and-run, no matter what )
Shays plans to hold three hearings next month to explore whether Iraq is heading toward democracy or civil war, a state parts of the country are already in, he said. "I am more pessimistic, clearly," he said.
( Iraqis are killing themselves at a rate of 50K/year. The civil war is at full blast, thanks to the Repugs )
On Thursday, Rep. Michael G. Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) wrote a letter to cons uents declaring that he was saying no to "President Bush's 'stay-the-course' strategy" in Iraq. That followed a Fitzpatrick statement earlier this month saying: "When it comes to the war in Iraq, President Bush has been bold, principled, resolute, but mistaken in crucial ways."
Amid such discord, Republicans welcomed a return to debating the NSA's warrantless surveillance program. With no quick resolution of the case in sight, the judicial decision is likely to remain an issue. The Justice Department filed its notice of appeal in the case Thursday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit in Cincinnati. But no deadline had been set as of yesterday afternoon for submitting briefs, a Justice Department official said.
"It's an opportunity, as we see it, to highlight the fundamental choice between the two parties," RNC spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt said, "between a party that understands the need for post-9/11 tools in a post-9/11 world and a party that questions giving law enforcement the tools they need to be successful."
( that's not even a Good Try, Tracey, at framing. All the Repugs understand is how to divide the country and exploit their bogus war on terr for Repug partisan purposes )
Staff writer Dan Eggen contributed to this report.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company
Well, you should not be a supporter of warrantless wiretapping then, since FISA actually authorizes POST action warrants, removing your delay concerns.
FISA has it's own court of judges. You don't have to go to lower level courts for this. You can get a warrant up to 72 hours after the fact.
Fallacious position. Because it hasn't affected you personally, it's OK? Bull . It's wrong.
When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.
When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for the Jews,
I did not speak out;
I was not a Jew.
When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.
Fleas can be taught nearly anything that a Congressman can.
- What Is Man?
Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
- Mark Twain, a Biography
Congressman is the trivialist distinction for a full grown man.
- Notebook #14, 11/1877 - 7/1878
All Congresses and Parliaments have a kindly feeling for idiots, and a compassion for them, on account of personal experience and heredity.
- Mark Twain's Autobiography; also in Mark Twain in Eruption
Congressman and flea
Illustration from AMERICAN EXAMINER, 1910
from the Dave Thomson collection
It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.
- Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar
It is the foreign element that commits our crimes. There is no native criminal class except Congress.
- More Maxims of Mark, Johnson, 1927
...I never can think of Judas Iscariot without losing my temper. To my mind Judas Iscariot was nothing but a low, mean, premature, Congressman.
- "Foster's Case", New York Tribune, 3/10/1873
I said than "no one" here has provided information as to them being affected by the wiretapping. Do you have information about anyone being adversely affected?
If no one's hurt, what's the problem with wiretapping that's done under cir stances that may allow for it without a warrant? We are talking about our National Security interests here.
What's the problem with getting a warrant?
"What's the problem with getting a warrant?"
Whatever the right calls a liberal is for, the right is against, knee-jerk-ily.
Whatever the right is for, it's automatically pure and right and true, and any rightwinger in power is now and forever pure, legal, honest, infiinitely trustable, as if he paranoia and distrustfulness inherent in the Cons ution is to be ignored as a liberal plot to persecute the right.
I'm sure the right would equally and rabidly support any and every extra-legal, secret Executive power grab by Clinton or inherited by the next Dem president.
Anybody who thinks the RNC and Rove aren't deeply into the content of the warrantless snooping of Democrats is at best naive. And then there is the RNC/Rove use of warrantless snooping of rich corps as a shakedown tool.
Judge Anna Diggs Taylor is a 73-year-old black woman with deep liberal and Democratic roots. She campaigned for Jimmy Carter's presidential election bid in '76, and was rewarded by him with the lifetime appointment to the US District Court in Detroit. She definitly fits the mold of someone who would tend to disagree with the Bush administration.
I suspect the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals will be overturning her ruling.
Those pesky damn darkies, wantin' they Cons utional rights protected.
I'm not sure there is one. The question is whether the process can be bypassed under certain cir stances.
It's seems there may be a power struggle between the Executive and Judicial Branches of our Government.
Which cir stances?I'm not sure there is one. The question is whether the process can be bypassed under certain cir stances.
If you get the urge to do so. Just for kicks.
I honestly don't know CD.
Honestly I think they just don't want a paper trail that can be scrutinized in the future.
in times of war you listen in to enemy conversations without warrants.... are we not in a war? Is not america a battlefield now....?
72 hours is too ing long
raising money on the campaign trail
filling up my suv's 50 gallon tank
been driving around passing out bibles and
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