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Being able to ask for the warrant after collecting the evidence is super-duper-reasonable.
Yes, if he has a reasonable purpose behind the actions.
You refuse to acknowledge that the 4th amendment is not an absolute protection. It absolutely does not apply to reasonable searches. An equal branch of our higest government is not subject to the civil additions to the privacy protections.
I'm done with you. It is so easily understood, yet you don't. Come up with something compelling if you want farther responces from me on the subject.
You are just being unreasonable. Try being reasonable please...
Being able to ask for the warrant after collecting the evidence is super-duper-reasonable.
I don't get that aspect of it, I think it's stupid. I have not seen anything to keep such 'spying' practices from occuring within cons utional 'reasonable' bounds.
You are just being unreasonable. Try being reasonable please...
Sure. My point is this: while the President can claim that a search is reasonable under whatever au es he thinks that claim is justified, that claim is inherently one that is subject to challenge in courts, which have historically had the final say in determining if a search without a warrant is one that can be deemed reasonable or not. In that context, a search undertaken without a warrant is presumptively uncons utional, but could be deemed cons utional if the executive can make a compelling argument to show that the search was somehow reasonable even without a warrant.
You're right in the sense that the President could authorize any search he wanted and claim the search to be so reasonable to not require a warrant. My point is that the ultimate cons utionality of his action will be decided, in most instances, by the judiciary. If the judiciary believes that national security creates a justification for deeming a particular warrantless search to be a reasonable one, that search will be upheld; if the judiciary believes that national security does not create that sort of justification, the search will be struck down.
The President's authority under Article II does not eliminate the protections of the Fourth Amendment. Period. If someone who is prosecuted on the basis of information obtained during a warrantless search chooses to challenge the cons utional validity of the search, the executive's Article II powers don't necessarily make the search permissible; they simply provide an argument to be made on behalf of deeming the search reasonable.
I can't wait to be told that I'm being obtuse or that I simply don't understand Cons utional Law.
I thought this video would fit well with the first few pages of this thread...
Link
I'm waiting for you to tell us why this is being battled out in the media, forums, and by leftist rhetoric. Why isn't it in the judiciary already?
I think opponents know what the judiciary will ultimately decide; the president acted within his cons utional authority as commander in chief, responsible for defending the nation.
Precisely because the Bush Administration doesn't want it to go to the judiciary, hence the hasty move to send Padilla to a civilian court before they got nailed by the Supreme Court.
And reality has a well known liberal bias.
I'm an American...and even I wouldn't say America is the greatest nation on Earth...I'm just not that arrogant...as a human or as an American.
So getting back on topic are we still trying to say that Obama does not have love in his heart for A-merry-ca because of no hand on his heart bull ?
Actually, it's not being fought in courts because every time someone tries to fight it out in court, the Administration argues that they lack standing to challenge the program.
It's not a question of fear that the administration will be validated, it's an inherent problem with exercises of executive power that would seem, from a macro perspective, to threaten cons utional rights while maintaining near-absolute secrecy about what is actually being done, so nobody actually knows if their rights have been violated or not.
I've seen that before.
Please explain.
Successfully you should have added.
If you don't have anyone with standing, you don't have an injured party and, therefore, you don't have a cons utional violation.
But, there are a bunch of Democrats willing to state, with certainty, the administration is acting extra-cons utionally.
If, as you say, no one knows if there's been a violation, then how can anyone be certain there has been?
They can't.
The administration claims it is acting within its cons utional authority in these programs and there is no evidence to contrary. Well, that was certainly worth destroying a valuable intelligence tool to determine.
That's not correct. You can have a cons utional violation inasmuch as someone's rights are being violated; the issue is that the person whose rights are being violated may not know (or be able to prove) that he or she, specifically, has been harmed. The inability to prove that a specific person was harmed does not make the program free of cons utional questions.
Because there is reason to believe that the program functions in an extra-cons utional manner. Both the Fourth Amendment and FISA require warrants to undertake such surveillance, and it's clear that the program operates (or, perhaps, operated) without seeking warrants. The sole question is whether it has been used to obtain information about American citizens; if it does (and I'm guessing that there is reason to believe that it might) then there is, at the very least, a significant cons utional question. Based on existing principles of cons utional law, there is also reason to believe, in that cir stance, that the adminstration is acting extra-cons utionally. I'm not sure that it's utterly unreasonable for some to believe that this Administration -- an Administration seeking to establish an Imperial Executive -- might disregard the cons utional rights of some citizens if it believes that it serves some self-defined purpose.
People who devote their entire lives to studying the Cons ution and who know significantly more about it than either you or me are convinced that there is, at the very least, a cons utional question raised by the program in question. To that end, there are certainly reasons to question the Administration's credibility when it comes it self-serving claims in support of actions it is taking or wishes to take. The very existence of those concerns, coupled with the troubling cons utional questions raised by this program itself, are enough to provide reasonable doubts about a claim that the program operates in a cons utional fashion. I don't see how anyone could reasonably argue that the need to gather intelligence is somehow greater than the need to assure the protection of cons utional rights -- I certainly wouldn't consider any such person to be a patriot, since the Cons ution defines the very essence of what makes America great.
I doesn't make the program fraught with them either. And, back to one of my original points; unless opponents produce evidence of the actual cons utional violation [which they haven't] or someone that has been verifiably harmed by the program [which they haven't], it doesn't justify the destruction of what is claimed to have been a valuable intelligence asset.
A lot of ifs and perhapses in that paragraph.
What reason is there to believe the program functions in an extra-cons utional manner?
The Fourth amendment to the U. S. Cons ution prohibits "unreasonable" searches. It doesn't address the reasonableness or unreasonableness of the administration's application of the NSA surveillance program in question.
The administration claims their application cons utes a reasonable search and, therefore, does not require a warrant. The administration's opponents claim -- without a shred of proof -- it violates the 4th amendment. Pony up the evidence.
And, as for FISA, the executive is bound by a congressional act insofar as it does not infringe on his own cons utional obligations.
There are people who devote their entire lives to studying the Cons ution and who know significantly more about it than either you or me that are equally convinced the question would be settled in favor of the executive branch and therefore does not warrant the trashing of what purports to be a valuable intelligence asset right in the middle of a war.
Not without evidence to the contrary.
Shared only by the president's political opponents.
I disagree and, I figure that, while it is not my disagreement that has prevented this from being hauled into the courts it is the disagreement of highly intelligent people -- with a grasp on cons utional law -- that happen to agree with me, that have prevented this from being hauled into the courts.
Your argument presumes the administration is conducting warrantless surveillance on people who enjoy cons utional protections. That is not the administration's argument.
I read this paragraph again and have a question for you.
How can someone's rights be violated without them being harmed? And, more specifically, how is someone harmed without knowing it?
Harm is a tangible manifestation of an alleged cons utional violation. Without harm, there is no cons utional violation.
The peeping tom that was looking in on your wife undressing wasn't trespassing or violating your privacy because no one noticed him. More brilliant legal reasoning from Yonivore.
Just like similar court findings for past presidents have ruled in favor of the president.
That wasn't the point.
Q) Why haven't detractors taken this to court...
A) The haven't because the courts would rule in favor of the president!
It is a question to consider.
He is applying for the job of commander in chief. He has not yet learned to 'lead by example' since he cannot render such a simple honor to the flag.
A one time oooops... I can live with. One of his own people is quoted as saying something like "sometimes he does, sometimes he doesn't."
I don't know about you, but the principle of it bothers the out of me. But then, I’m just a proud American veteran. I would bother me to be in the military and serve under such a man.
we have since found out that it's important for our president to be an exceptional, intelligent person.
bush is a "special" person.
Because little things can say a lot about a person's character.
Really?
Slate
BETTENDORF, Iowa—A scurrilous new e-mail is circulating about Barack Obama. Over the last few months there were the ones that suggested he was secretly hiding his Muslim faith. The messages suggest he refused to pledge allegiance this summer at a steak fry hosted by Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin.
Nutty rumors are always circulating about candidates. The Republicans spread their own in the run-up to the August straw poll. Usually campaigns can ignore them. To engage a made-up claim only gives it unwanted attention. What makes this one a problem is that it appears to have penetrated deeply into the pool of voters Obama is courting. They asked about the pledge at the first two town halls kicking off his five-day tour here. Since building support for the Iowa caucuses relies on word-of-mouth, rumors are all the more dangerous. Here's how Obama dealt with the issue:
Tuesday night in Cedar Rapids, a woman stood, describing herself as "a mother of two small children trying to instill how important it is to be politically minded." As her young son stood behind her she asked about the e-mail charge, which she said had her son "very concerned."
Obama, who has already had to deal with a flap over wearing a flag pin, explained that the picture included in the e-mail was taken during the singing of the national anthem, not the Pledge of Allegiance. "I've been pledging allegiance to the flag since I was 3," he said. For that act of patriotism, he puts his hand over his heart, he said, but he doesn't do so when he's listening to the national anthem. (The U.S. flag code has a different view.) Regarding the woman's son, he said, "You let him know I'll come by his school and we'll say the pledge together."
In Muscatine on Wednesday, another woman asked about the pledge e-mail. This time, Obama, who was understandably exasperated, treated the question as ludicrous—as if someone had suggested that he's not black (which, come to think of it, they have). "I was taught by my grandfather to put my hand on my heart with the pledge and with the Star Spangled Banner, you sing, so that's what I did. ... I've been pledging allegiance since I was 3. I lead the pledge when I open the United States Senate. It's on C-SPAN."
John erson is Slate's chief political correspondent and author of On Her Trail. He can be reached at [email protected].
Last edited by Mr. Peabody; 11-07-2007 at 07:52 PM.
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