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09 Feb 06 - 07:49 PM (#1665600) Subject: BS: More Angles on Warrantless Wiretapping From: Amos This letter was recently sent by two senators to several principals of large telecommunication companies, to find out whether they had played along with illegal wiretap requests. I am delighted that someone is pulling this string. A |
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09 Feb 06 - 08:39 PM (#1665649) Subject: RE: BS: More Angles on Warrantless Wiretapping From: GUEST,AR282 Very definitely that has to be pursued and some strict ground rules have to be laid down on the matter. They are not the eyes and ears of the intelligence community and they had better never again make the mistake of thinking that they are. I think currents heads of corporations need to step down and public letters of apology issued. There should also be hefty fines and even prison time if need be. There was a story in the news this morning about 2 FISA judges being against the domestic spying operation and would not accept any NSA intelligence as a basis for a warrant. All NSA data was tagged so that there would be no confusion about who gathered certain intelligence. They were positive it would be declared unconstitutional in a court of law. The operation was temporarily shut down around 2004 or 5 briefly after FISA learned that the operation was being carried out covertly. The problem stemmed from the fact that FISA wanted probable cause but it is impossible to spy on thousands perhaps millions of people and claim probable cause. So Gonzales saying that there was probable cause in what Bush had ordered is absurd in the face of the fact that they skirted FISA precisely because they knew FISA would not and legally could not find probable cause. This turns Gonzales' statement into, "There was probable cause because we say so." But, really, that's been Bush's mentality throughout his presidency. It's like that saying: "An institution is the lengthened shadow of one person." This entire administration and its minions in Congress are like a mega-Bush, a Portguese Bush-of-war, a Bush-Borg. |
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10 Feb 06 - 04:40 PM (#1666351) Subject: RE: BS: More Angles on Warrantless Wiretapping From: JohnInKansas This entire administration and its minions in Congress are like a mega-Bush, a Portguese Bush-of-war, a Bush-Borg. Add Goebels, Himmler, and Hitler to the list perhaps? The claims of "executive authority" and "national interest" are a disturbing echo in history. IMO it's not really even appropriate to call what appears to have been done a "wire tap." According to computer/communications industry reports, they "persuaded" the phone companies to reroute massive portions of all international messaging through routers located in the US and recorded all traffic going through the trunks, in order to apply "data mining" methods to look for "suspicious" signatures in messages. Such mass interception would unavoidably include communications by large numbers of persons/businesses not suspect in any way, and quite likely included large amounts of purely "domestic" traffic. Quite likely a number of friendly(?) foreign embassies should be greatly concerned as well. Recent weaseling by administration spokespersons that claims that they only "tapped" messages involving "terrorist suspects" just means "we don't want to talk about all the rest of them." The administration did, according to reports, discuss this method with the judges on the secret court, and were told that it (probably) would not be approved. Small wonder they evaded the court. Now to see what the corporate responses may be... John |
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10 Feb 06 - 06:45 PM (#1666436) Subject: RE: BS: More Angles on Warrantless Wiretapping From: The Fooles Troupe I was worried when I saw this thread. I knew that Angles could dance on the head of a pin, but now they are tapping on wires? "Just tap three times, on the wire if you want me, love! bang on the pipe, if the answer is no!" |
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10 Feb 06 - 07:03 PM (#1666449) Subject: RE: BS: More Angles on Warrantless Wiretapping From: Kaleea Oh, my darling, wi-re-tap means king george has ab-so-lu-uute power, |
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11 Feb 06 - 11:34 AM (#1666799) Subject: RE: BS: More Angles on Warrantless Wiretapping From: Amos Oh, Old King George has a bottomless gorge ANd he stokes it by the hour With his energy graft, And the poor he shafts, And an endless grab of power. With his wall of stealth And some corporate wealth He's cozy, warm and winning. But the weirdest thing Is that having a king Has been wrong since the beginning. And we never planned To elect a man Who would secretly build him a crown. And the wisest course, Free of all remorse, Would be "Pull the bugger down". A |
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11 Feb 06 - 12:22 PM (#1666818) Subject: RE: BS: More Angles on Warrantless Wiretapping From: Troll Any wiretaps should be done within the law. There is a provision that taps may be done if a warrant is applied for within 72 hours. What would happen if a wiretap got solid evidence of an imminent strike and then the FISA judges refused the warrant? Would the evidence be unusable under the law? Or is there another route that could be taken. Any ideas? I'm not interested in perjorative comments about the Bush administration. There are plenty of those around and they don't do anything to address the very real problems of intelligence gathering. troll |
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11 Feb 06 - 03:31 PM (#1666859) Subject: RE: BS: More Angles on Warrantless Wiretapping From: Lady Hillary I believe that the concept we are looking for is "The fruit of the poisoned tree." If a search is illegal, its fruits are inadmissable in most courts of law. |
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11 Feb 06 - 05:14 PM (#1666873) Subject: RE: BS: More Angles on Warrantless Wiretapping From: Bobert Actually, troll, probably a lot... I'm sure that had the NSA taken "credible" evidence to a FIAS judge about an incident that was about to occur that would cost lives then the FISA judge would have issued the warrent... That is not something that happened, or if it did Bush would be all over the media with it... But letys get real here fir one minute... Had the NSA credible evidence that an incident would most likely occur I don't think for a New York minute they'd bother themselves with FISA as all... Your hypothetical situation doesn't justify what has been occuring here... Might of fact, under FISA, the Attroney General can order a wiretap and get the warrent later... Bobert |