Redstate

I've also looked into this issue backwards, forwards and sideways since day one that the NY Times felt the need to trumpet classified information about the NSA program.

Interestingly enough, changes to FISA during the Carter and Clinton years plus a 2002 ruling by the FISA Review Court have strengthened(not weakened), the President's position.

You also have the acts during the Clinton Administration of warrantless physical searches (quite a more intrusive breach than listening in to someone's phone calls), during the Aldrich Ames investigation. Then President Clinton also used CIA Spy Satellites to check the Oklahoma City area after the federal building bombing. This segways nicely into rebuffing the charges about using radiation detecting equipment during the current administration. Simply put, how can it be legal and okay when a Democrat is President and unlawful when a Republican is President? This is not a logical stance for those on the left, but then I've never credited them with being logical.

The short of the long is this simple fact - the President (Rep or Dem), has the inherent authority to use resources at his/her disposal to protect the nation in times of crisis and war.

This inherent power is Constitutional but not unchecked.

Members of Congress and the FISA Court were briefed and have continued to be briefed. What the NY Times is trying to do is undermind the Executive Branch of this country during wartime by insinuating that maybe something illegal was done when they know good and well that nothing of the sort is true.

the president should have unlimited powers to wiretap as much as possiable because almost anybody could have alqueada ties, we know sadaam did we should have wiretapped him.  No law should apply to Bush just because librals hate him they want hinm to follow the law. Well laws are made to be broken and Bush will keep us safe just like in Katrina.

Usually, when I read something this awful, it's usually a repeat account. Sadly, this is brand new tripe for you. Same result either way.

Blam.

anyone know the record for the quickest registration-posting-expulsion? This one must be close ...

The Pres. had to do the intercepting outside of the law.  If he felt that FISA too strictly constrained him, then why not get congress to alter the law?

Presidents have been gathering foreign intell since George Washington without asking congress or the courts. Its inherent in defending the nation. Clinton did this when we were not a war. see Ames and Echelon.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110007734

http://www.aijac.org.au/resources/aijac-media/tl_wfr_120305.htm

He doesn't have to go to Congress to adjust any law. The Constitution of the United States (Article 2, Section 1), the AMUF passed by Congress in 2001(President can use all necessary force), and the FISA exemption for gathering foreign intelligence are all the legal justifications he needs.

This isn't rocket science. All it takes is a little effort at reading. Check out the statutes and court rulings yourself.

You libs/defeatacrats just do not get it, The President did not violate any laws. FISA and Congress were made very aware of the "detecting" and "monitoring" going on. No one was wiretapped. This BDS of yours has got to stop, but the more you do it, the more his Poll numbers go up. If there was any laws broken, there would have been screaming from every hall of acadeem in the country. Just because you defeatacrats and Euro trash out there want it to be so, does not make it so. The President was well within his authority to "Protect This Nation", since the previous administrations did "absolutely nothing to Protect this country". I grow weary of listening to you defeatists whine and moan and cry about how evil the President is and how he is "Hitler" and how he should be assasinated. When William "Blythe" Clinton did actual "PHYSICAL" searches of domestic homes and "Ruby Ridge" you defeatists were completely silent or you hailed him as a hero. Where were you then crying about the abuses. I saw or read absolutely "NO" outcry from you loosers. Like the post says, why is it ok for defeatacrats and not for Republicans? You whiners will not and can not answer that. If this President had done nothing and had not actually stopped terrorist attacks on this country you would have wanted to impeach him for not doing enough to connect the dots. Now that he has connected dots and has actually prevented some attacks from happenning you want him gone, you people (and I use that term litely) can not have it both ways. You are either with this country in the war on terror or you move to europe, YOUR CHOICE.

most likely get an education plus a little therapy before you post something so laughable.

The President hasn't broken any law. He has inherent authority under the U.S. Constitution to conduct intelligence gathering during wartime.

FISA does not limit the President's authority(you really need to read the law on it instead of acting like you know what it states), and past and recent court decisions have upheld this fact.

On a side note, I think it's cute when a liberal starts talking about the sacredness of civil rights considering that wonderful record (Ruby Ridge, Waco, Elian Gonzales), your party's erstwhile leader has compiled on that subject.

What makes your post even sillier is that you have no idea about the intentions or character of any persons or group that might have been monitored. You just assume that bad ole Bush wants to find out what library books you read or where you got your last stash of weed.

Pathetic really. Run along now little lib, we adults have a war to fight to keep maniacs from killing outstanding citizens like yourself.

First, there are constitutional authorities that find what the administration did (with the current information at hand) at the least, disturbing. These opinions come from both the left and the right.

Second, this will ultimately end up in the hands of the supremes, who will make a determination of whether it was right and can continue.

Third, why constantly bring up Clinton?

If what he did was indeed against the constitution, write your congressman and have charges brought.

But it does no one any good to keep saying "Nya, Nya, Nya....well he did it"

As for Ruby Ridge...sorry, but I have little sympathy for white racist seperatists. Especially after Oklahoma City.

I will state this one more time for you people who do not get it. I am not saying well he did it so we can to. What I am trying to point out is, the hypocrasy of your side is so blatant. Where were you people when it was used by previous admins. You people think history started in january of 2001. Plus there is major differences between when the previous admin did it and this President. The previous admin actually did spy and physically search US citizens inside the borders of this great country. This President is "detecting" and "monitoring" Al Queda terrorists outside the borders. They were monitoring those islamofacists when some "persons" inside the borders contacted them. What is so stopping you from seeing the difference, except for your BDS. The SCOTUS will not hear a case about this because nothing was illegal about it. There is nothing for the SCOTUS, except for your BDS for the SCOTUS to hear. Your shameless and transparent attempts here will not work. This President is not and has not operated above or outside the law peroid. I wish I couold say the same about the previous admin. As far as the "Ruby Ridge" comment I stated before, I do not support "white supremist" or any "color supremist". I was only making a statement about their rights and their privacy, the previous admin did not care one bit about privacy rights or rights in general. My whole point was, why is it ok for a defeatacrat to do it and not a replublican who is actually making us safer. Your points are so transparent and shameless. In a time of war, the President is granted certain powers to "defend" our nation from all enemies foreign and domestic. That is his number "1" duty. While you may dream and constantly wish for an impeachment, it won't happen with this President, as he has done nothing wrong. You really do need to go back to Daily Kos or DU, because I think that village is missing an idiot.

While I personally don't see why it is such a hardship to have to obtain a warrent after 72 hours of wiretapping (this is my understanding of the FISA legislation, if someone can inform me otherwise I'd be interested), I expect intelligence agencies to operate above the law in the interest of the US. They should. This is in the interest of the average American's safety

It has been pretty well known for the last 20 years that the NSA maintains a system known as Echelon, the sole purpose of which is to search for keywords in telephone conversations. Why this is not front page news for the NYT I don't know.

Why any reasonable person would trust a telephone for anything sensitive is beyond me.

comments appreciated

on the difficulty of the 72 hour "grace period" for obtaining a FISA warrant: Byron York on NRO

He makes the case that the process of justifying a warrant is onerous and more work than 72 hours can contain.

Gonzales: "That question was asked earlier. We've had discussions with members of Congress, certain members of Congress, about whether or not we could get an amendment to FISA, and we were advised that that was not likely to be -- that was not something we could likely get, certainly not without jeopardizing the existence of the program, and therefore, killing the program. And that -- and so a decision was made that because we felt that the authorities were there, that we should continue moving forward with this program."

He obviously felt things were ok without asking Congress, and even if they did ask, Congress would probably try to say no.

thanks, that's quite informative.

although I have to say I still favor a legislative method of dealing with this problem rather than a decision by the President to bypass it.

Check/balance = freedom

was "not without jeopardizing the existence of the program, and therefore, killing the program".

I think this says that the administration was not just advancing its prerogative in order to make a statement about presidential authority, but was simply unwilling to put an important intelligence program at risk in order to obtain specific congressional concurrence.

If you ever get hauled before a United States court on the basis of information gleaned from an NSA intercept of an international telephone call, I'm sure the judge will be very sympathetic to your argument and toss the evidence out on its ear.

Why would the government ever haul you into court when they could just keep you in jail instead?  They don't even need to charge you with a crime.

The President's NSA conduct was limited to:

*People in contact with Al Qaeda (often unknown to us before the contact).

*Foreign telecom traffic of various natures routed through US telecom switches.

What the President did NOT do was assert:

*The right to wiretap anyone without ANY oversight.

[The President made 30 reports to Congress and the FISA court. They may not have liked it, but he made them. Even stopped the program and made some modifications. So others had input. But yeah Bush is the President NOT Sen. Rockefeller]

*The right to wiretap those NOT involved in foreign intelligence and Al Qaeda specifically.

[Bush did NOT wiretap Howard Dean or the DNC (though the insanity may have been fun to laugh at); nor did he wiretap Moveon, Kerry, or Nancy Pelosi. ONLY those involved with Al Qaeda comms].

What disturbs me the most is NO DEM AT ANY TIME has proposed ANYTHING to fight and win against Al Qaeda. Instead we get the same rhetoric from Dems: "we deserved it, we must understand their rage, we must understand why they hate us, we can't win against them, they're unstoppable, if we surrender they'll leave us alone."

For the Party of FDR, this is shameful.

The revelations are dangerous and will lead to Al Qaeda being able to do a 9/11 plus. Think they just went away after 9/11?

Why did the win in Beslan, Bali, Jakarta, Istanbul, Amman, Sharm el Sheik, Tunisia, Madrid, London, New Delhi and more despite going up some of the world's best anti-terror governments (and yes some second raters too like the Russians who are inept)?

Because Al Qaeda knows how to fight against secret police, informants, spies, and massive government controls. They use people as controllers (not the disposable foot soldiers) who grew up in extended family/tribes and knew each other all their lives. Examples being 1993 WTC bomber Ramzi Yusef and 9/11 Architect Khalid Sheik Mohammed, nephew and Uncle respectively.

What NSA did and NY Times revealed was that these relationships and ties were uncovered by massive amounts of data analysis, something no other country could even think of doing much less carry out. Because they would not have the men, money, or brilliant minds needed to use data, technology, and math to find the needles in the haystack.

Now Al Qaeda knows generally how this was done (tracking credit card transactions, phone and telecom usage, etc and finding correlations in massive ... i.e. petabytes of data through tremendous amounts of computer processing and advanced mathematics). Now they'll go "off the grid" and go cash only, do things to disrupt their normal SOP for logistics, scouting, planning, and pre-attack.

It's like telling the world in the middle of the Battle of the North Atlantic that yes, you can read the German Admiralty codes and know exactly where the U-boats are. It's monumentally stupid and throws away our proven success against an enemy who could not even conceive of math and computer processing finding them in the sea of urban anonymity.

As for FISA, it 8 months after 9/11 was fighting to on it's own overturn the Patriot Act and Executive Orders and impose the "Gorelick Wall" forbidding sharing of info among Intelligence and Law Enforcement people about terrorist threats. In violation of both the Law and Executive order, and also the 9/11 Commission's recs. Since the "Wall" led to the FBI not being able share info among counter-terrorism and law enforcement entities; and the FISA court temper tantrums in late 2000 led the FBI to declare in sworn testimony before Congress that not a SINGLE warrant for Al Qaeda was submitted to FISA in 2001 because FISA made it known they would not be accepted.

FISA is an extreme liberal court that's out of control, intent on freeing as many terrorists as possible to go out and kill Americans. They hold generally that all Government can do in response to terrorism is pick up bodies. This is no exaggeration just read the latest Weekly Standard column which has verbatim sworn testimony from Congress by the FBI officials in question.

"they can just hold you in jail and not charge you"

Wow, in the middle of the war on terror, we hold "enemy combatants" while trying to get info from them and we are just throwing people into jail and throwing away the key. You need to stop reading the defeatacrat talking points and put down the Deaniac kool aid and wake up. We are trying to stop future attacks and you just want everyone to "just get along". Let me tell you a little secret --- The islamofacists will just cut your head off, real simple. We are trying to gather info that might save your life. The "enemy combatants" that are in detention deserve to be there. They are not there for drinking tea. They meant to do harm to us and our citizens. PERIOD. We do not throw people into detention indiscriminately and without cause. I know your BSD says that this President does, but it is not true. Please, we respect only the truth here.

Certainly not ours.

Try actually reading the PA.

You might get a bit angry when you find out you have been lied to by the MSM and the DNC.

Thinking you could actually have a conversation based on fact and logic with a liberal, big mistake. BDS saps the very fabric from all liberals, leaving nothing but the husks to try and talk with.

It's a war, the liberals never will get it. It's as if they woke up one day and said this war is very bad for liberals since it makes Bush out to be a strong heroic President and we can't have that. Been down hill ever since.

But if we make it through the war alive, we can argue all day about the hows. If we don't, they won't matter. War isn't about protecting civil liberties, it's about surviving to argue another day.

Never ever trust a liberal with national security.

If the Clinton administration did illegally wiretap and physically search citizens inside our borders, that's a huge problem and we should make it better known.  I'd like to learn more about it.  Thus, a lot of us do NOT think this would be okay if done by a former/Democratic administration.

For the record, I doubt that the wiretapping was a huge infringement on civil liberties, but I don't have anything right now but the administration's word to back up that gut feeling.  Since the Clinton administration would also maintain that they did not break the law even if they did, I'd like to have something beyond the simple claims I've heard thus far.  Can you help?

They hold generally that all Government can do in response to terrorism is pick up bodies.

These are all Federal District Court judges. Their entire existence revolves around the law and the law revolves around punishment for a crime, not preemption.

The Bush administration has it mostly right; hunt down the terrorists where they live. But even they still keeps talking about 'bringing people to justice' which most people interpret as trial and then punishment. I think the result is a mixed message; on the one hand we are at war, on the other we are looking for criminals.

of course, that Moveon, Kerry, Pelosi, et al, have not communicated with Al Queda.  I have my doubts about who has their allegiance.  They certainly don't have my safety utmost in their minds.

You're right, of course, that this evidence would get tossed at a trial. But I don't really care about that... that's not so interesting or concerning to me.

This is what I (and maybe other people) are afraid of: wiretapping without a warrant (or other form of independent oversight) could easily lead to someone in the future deciding to wiretap for blackmail political opponents for blackmailing purposes. Got a mistress? In the closet? Or, to borrow a favorite meme, start reflecting on the time you intentionally drove off a high bridge while drunk and killed your wife? For that matter, why not wiretap the DNC/RNC and listen to them plan strategies? During an election year, you might well pick up something priceless.

Almost everyone has a skeleton of some sort or another in their past. That's why I'm concerned about wiretapping without a warrant.

screening checkpoint at the Airport, all I could think about was the hypocresy of those of who are worried about the NSA destroying their "civil liberties," yet I have yet to hear these people complaining about the fact that every time we get on a plane we get the Mohammed Atta treatment.  I cant speak for others, but I truly hate the fact that because of a number of terrorist --from a specific part of the world-- I have to let some stranger into my privacy, take off my shoes, belt, lift up my shirt and the like.

I think this NSA debate is a loser for liberals and the democrats.  Had the president not engage himself in this type of espionage, he should be impeached.

If you have secrets, it's pretty stupid to broadcast them on the internet or on the public telephone grid  out of the country.

This isn't like an intrusion into your home to read your diary.  A wiretap of an international phone call is not the same thing.

to front page diaries.  This one is so good on so many levels.

1.  This is good for Republicans.  There is no one arguing that GWB did any wiretapping looking for Laura's boyfriend, Teddy's girlfriend, blackmailing a previous mistress, or looking for dirt on The Ice Queen's husband, formerly known as President.  Unlike previous "Presidential Power Abuse Scandals," this president was, as near as we can tell, only interested in protecting and defending this United States.  I hope the BDS infected Ds continue to drive this point home.  Continue to worry about protecting the civil rights of Al Quada.  Particularly since they cared not one whit about Clinton and the FBI files, or Clinton and the IRS audits.
   
2.  I would give my eye teeth to see the leaker go to jail and the NYT bankrupted by their continuing desire to handicap our nation's security apparatus.
   
3.  Other than the fact that I care about the future of the United States, we couldn't ask for a better opposition party.

FISA is an extreme liberal court that's out of control, intent on freeing as many terrorists as possible to go out and kill Americans.

That's a pretty strong statement without any evidence.  

I am personally neutral on all of this until I get enough real information to make an informed decision.  But to write off the secret FISA court as 'extreme liberal' and 'out of control' seems like an enormous stretch without any supporting evidence.

which should read that the United States Constitution was ratified on September 17 1787.  The founders were cleary wary of excessive executive power and framed the constitution to avoid problems such as this.  Therefore, if the Constitution is valid, the rest of you argument is republican fanboy retoric.

Wow. Truly, you have stunned me into silence with your rapier wit. Having nothing with which to respond, I will simply silence your noble dissenting voice instead, and you can traipse on back to Kos and bemoan your fate there.

Blam.

(seriously, while there's some valid discussion about whether the program violated FISA, only the Looney Tunes are arguing this program was unconstitutional.)

that Detroit means "strait" in French?

Seems to me that you're right on the money on all points.

Question is: Why isn't the White House going on full offense on this?  I still get the sense that they're being defensive about the program, about Presidential powers, etc.  They're being forced to deny breaking the law over and over again, which suggests some sort of wrongdoing.

Why not go on the offensive on this?  The vast majority of the American people will understand very easily that conducting intelligence against Al Qaeda is a very good thing.  The President should be hammering his critics on this and take the offense in this debate.

The AG, through the FBI Counterintelligence division, should immediately be launching a criminal investigation into who leaked this info to the NYTimes.  The President should be castigating the media for giving away state secrets, and hammering losers like Rockefeller for his sieve-like memory.

And to your point, he and the GOP leadership should absolutely be crucifying the Democrats for being weak lily-livered legalcrats concerned more about the niceties of some arcane law -- even if such a law was never violated -- than protecting the American people from Al Qaeda terrorists.

Imagine:

"I am doing everything in my power to protect the American people from Al Qaeda terrorists; the Democrats are doing everything in their power to get them off on technicalities.  This is a war to me; it's some sort of a legal game with them.  You want to impeach me for spying on Al Qaeda terrorists?  Bring it on.  

In the meantime, the FBI will be investigating, and the DoJ will be prosecuting, those who leaked this classified intel to reporters; if any members of Congress or their staff are found to be the source, their security clearance will be revoked, and I will ask the leadership of the House or the Senate to remove such members from their body.  Then they will be prosecuted."

-TS

I think your post has some good points, but you guys are perhaps jumping the gun attacking the "liberal" point of view on this one.

I am very conservative.
I support Bush's detainment of "enemy combatants".
I support the Iraq war and the GWOT.
I think Bush is doing all he can to protect us and I think he is being honest about his intent.
I think his navigation around FISA on these wiretaps is probably legal and he cannot be impeached for it.

But I also think he should probably use some restraint and try to reform FISA. I am really worried he is setting a poor precedent here, even if it is legal. Do you want Hillary or some other Dem "misinterpreting" the precedent and using wiretaps to bash political opponents (accidentally of course)? Think about it.

I and many other libertarian-minded individuals (and even, gasp!, some liberals!) have no problem with what happened in the wake of 9/11.  But 4 years later is hardly in the wake of 9/11, and I still haven't heard a convincing argument as to why the President didn't make it a priority to get Congress to change the relevant law.  This started as a vague unease which has only grown with dismissive comments from Gonzales and others which have confirmed that the President didn't think it was important or necessary to get Congressional approval or to get the relevant laws changed.  The President got some bad legal advice, to be sure, but it is still part of his job to make sure his actions are justifiable and legal.

Again, for the record, the spying doesn't bother me.  I want the NSA monitoring and detecting threats.  And in an emergency the President should be able to monitor, record, even hold someone without cause or temporarily strip them of their rights.  But if circumstances have changed to the point that these need to be everyday happenings, that these are radically new techniques or semi-permanent measures, the law must be changed to reflect that.

Re: I think the result is a mixed message; on the one hand we are at war, on the other we are looking for criminals.

The two are not mutually exclusive. There is such a thing as a war criminal.

How about this?  First thing back from Christmas break, the House leadership introduces a Sense of the House Resolution just like it did during the Murtha Insurrection.  Here's some prossilbe language:

It is the sense of this House of Representatives that recent revelations in the New York Times and The Washington Post concerning NSA monitoring of communications between parties seeking to do harm to the United States have damaged the National Security interests of this country.  Furthermore, it is the sense of this House of Representatives that the actions taken by President Bush were entirely legal and proper, were necessary to the defense of the country, and were authorized by Article II of the Constitution of the United States and by the Authroization of the Use of Military Force passed by the Congress of the United States on September 14, 2001.

Let's put them on record again.

I agree with Lucianne's comment yesterday - the more the NY times talks about this, the better W looks. Eventually the Dems will figure out what side will benefit them and then pick it. Then again, maybe not - their anger does sometimes get the best of them. What amazes me is the left's inability to address the issue - a legal one - with any objectivity. Their starting point (hate Bush) leads them down one path, and it's as if the legal standard Dems look at is whether the ACLU has any objection. Ridiculous.

The Dems continue to implode. Howard Dean lives.

The GWOT is not going away after GWB leaves office.  With McCain, Hillary, Warner, Feingold, whoever in the White House, do you honestly want the legal standard for wiretapping to be "the President saw a threat?"

there are, but you know exactly what I meant by the distinction, so this is a bit specious.

The war-on-terror-as-crime mindset treats this as some sort of global carjacking ring.

... get them on record again and again and again. Eventually the Democratic Party will dry up and blow away and the rational former-Democrats can form a new party and the country can get on with the proper conduct of politics.

when you care to send the very best :)

Good grief, what color is that kettle again?

If I'm interpreting the liberal stand on this issue correctly, the policy should be "Oh crap, this terrorist is placing a phone call to the U.S.  Turn the recorder off!"

The family attacked at Ruby Ridge had nothing to do with Oklahoma City but they had to die anyway.  The six month old baby who lost its mother when she, while holding him, had half her head blown away, just standing by a doorway.  We needed that identifying reminder, again thanks.  Doubtless you are a civil libertarian.

on this issue. I read something that accused the administration of wiretapping the Quakers. I've not run across any articles on this. Anyone know what this is about?

What disturbs me the most is NO DEM AT ANY TIME has proposed ANYTHING to fight and win against Al Qaeda.

How about this page?

Please find any one Democratic official who has said anything close to "we deserved it, we must understand their rage, we must understand why they hate us, we can't win against them, they're unstoppable, if we surrender they'll leave us alone."

Really.

I've lost count of how many threads I've read here and numerous other boards devoted to "We don't think Bush did anything wrong and the Democrats want the terrorists to win".

In the end this will be brushed off as a President that simply got a little overzealous protecting 'murica' and we'll move on. The Whitehouse will announce a blue ribbon comittee in charge of oversight and Americans will go back to watching American Idol.

Bush is in the clear, what's with all the uproar?

your point. Or rather, it seems like a red herring since no one is suggesting that terrorism is the equivalent of carjacking. And what's wrong with trying captured terrorists for their crimes? We did exactly that with Tim McVeigh, who was responsible for the 2nd worst act of terrorism in US history. He didn't get off lightly but paid the ultimate penalty as I recall. For that matter (re, war crimes) we tried the Nazis war criminals too, many of whom also paid the ultimate penalty. You seem to have a baseless fear that doing things the civilized way will result in terrorists escaping punishment, but surely our current policy  of failing to hold these people accountable for their actions is the worse alternative!

It's still about the power - the extent to which we're willing to allow government to control our behavior; and the means we grant the government to exercise that control.

I don't trust power.  There's a high probability that POTUS has nothing but the purest of intentions, but power will be abused, even if inadvertently.  And under rubrics of such wide implications as "inherent authority" and "time of war", the potential for abuse by minions and operatives is rife beyond imagining.

was "unwilling to put an important intelligence program at risk in order to obtain specific congressional concurrence."

I think that's the major opinion difference that's being shown between the red/blue.  The dems could care less about the intelligence operation, the Reps could care less about it's serious ethical implications, as long as the bad guys get shot.

Personally I see it as an abuse of power.  Yes broad scan wiretaps can be a useful tool for finding terrorists.  But it can also be used to spy on your allies and find out how they are going to vote.  It can be used to spy on your political advesaries to find out thier plans (ala watergate).  It can be used for a million things other than finding and dealing with the bad guys.  Regardless of being legal or not, it's the wrong way to combat terrorists.

The liberal stand is either something similar to my stand (reasonable liberals, of which there are actually a few) or whatever will look worst for the President (rabid liberals, which tend to be loud and obnoxious).  Your description describes the latter, which are often used to caricature what some more reasonable people actually think.

My stand is that the response of the NSA analyst should be, "record that sucker and track him down!  Get a warrant later, and if they don't get us one, screw 'em because this is great stuff."  And the President, after a few weeks of being briefed on this, should respond by triple-checking that the NSA analyst, under the President's orders, isn't breaking the law or ignoring the FISA court, and if this is the case, he should demand an emergency, highest confidentiality meeting of Congress to get new guidelines in place, new laws on the books.

. . . my attitude on this is the same as it is with the cop torturing a suspect to find out where the ticking bomb is -- is you're that sure it's there, do what you've got to do, but accept the consequences, but also the possibility of the use of the pardon power to immunize those who broke the law.

terrorism. The reason it is difficult to combat terrorism is that they do not play by the rules.  They don't wear uniforms and stay behind established lines.  Instead, they infiltrate our infrastructure and mingle in with the public.  Their communications are one of the few ways we can identify these people, unless you consider the airport mug shots of the 9/11 terrorists a valid method of identifying our enemies.

The mere fact that this website can exist as REDSTATE.ORG shows a crassness that amazes me. No, I am not a Democrat.

But...

I am an American and we are fighting for LIBERTY, not secret justice handed out in places like Gitmo. We - AMERICANS - are supposed to be a bit better than anyone else. We tell ourselves that. Then we spy on ANYONE we choose. Even you.

Even you

I'm seriously getting tired of the "War on Terrorism" "War on Drugs" "War on chocolate bars" mentality coming out of the traditional media and our politicians.

You can't have a war against an idea!  Terrorism, drugs, poverty, starvation, animal cruelty and disease are all states of being.  There is nothing you can attack in a conventional sense.  Thus whiel you can try to declare war on any of them, you will always LOSE.  Either by failing to achieve the eradication of your chosen enemy, or by becoming worse than your enemy in the process of killing them.  Any experienced general from the past 5000 years would tell you the same thing.

Terrorism is a crime, with criminal punishments and should be prosecuted, prevented and dealt with by a police and judicial system.  Until and unless a country names itself "Terrorism" there will never be a way to win a war against terrorism.

much substantive differences in the Kerry plans and what is being done now. Except that Kerry & the Dems would be running it - yes, yes, I know this is the key difference.

in mindset is the difference between prevention and punishment.

The legal system is designed to capture, try and punish someone after they have acted; the damage is already done.

Military action in the case of terrorism deals with prevention; find them and stop them before they can act. In many case this would preclude any legal action because the terrorist has not actually done anything yet.

I do not have a baseless fear that terrorists will escape punishment; I'm not interested in punishing them after the blow up an elementary school, or kill my wife and kids on an airplane, I'm interested in stopping them before they can act.

I guess the difference between thee and me, and between the 9/10 and 9/12 mindset is that I don't want to hold them accountable for their actions, I want to stop them from acting.

although many make the issue here out to be the invasion of privacy, that isn't the real problem. partisans aside, it is agreed that the president has narrowly tailored authority to intelligence-gather, otherwise known as spying, eaves-dropping, etc. in fact, FISA allowed him to do just that. and the question of whether the 72-hour warrant process under FISA was unduly restrictive isn't the heart of the issue, either. that is certainly for the president and those implementing our security decide. the key point, as has been mentioned here but not front and center, is that a respect for the written law of the United States demands that when a law becomes inappropriate, new legislation is created that fits the need. the alternative is that existing law is simply ignored, indefinitely, which is what Bush has done. this is a threat to the rule of law. granted, laws can be ignored in emergencies, but not indefinitely. the relevant example is lincoln taking his case to congress, after choosing to break Maryland's laws to allow troop movement during the civil war. this action both allows for immediate action to protect the state, and preserves the rule of law in the long term.

the law is all we have, fellas. amend it, interpret it, legislate it, whatever, but don't be so quick to support someone who does away with it.

The Pentagon, in a domestic intelligence program, monitored the activities of Quaker meetings in Florida. In a secret report published by NBC, the Pentagon declared the Quaker meetings to be a "threat."

http://www.fcnl.org/issues/item.php?item_id=1672&issue_id=67

Consider the likeness between the mafia/organized crime rings and modern terrorists.  The only differences are who they are killing and why.

They all have the same cure, cut off the head and the body withers and dies.  We can kill a hundred or a thousand terrorists, there will be more to replace them.  To take out a crime ring or a terrorist cell, you take out the boss.  It doesn't matter who was supplying or paying the boss, once he's gone (along with a few potential replacements) all the supplies and funding dry up.

. . . the notion that Dems didn't care about terrorism.  Want to argue about tactics and details?  Sure.  But I find repellent the assertion that Dems don't care about Al Qaeda.

"I don't want to hold them accountable for their actions, I want to stop them from acting. "

The very basis of our country's justice system is built around "Innocent until proven guilty".  The last part of the 5th amendment wasn't an afterthought, they meant all of it.

I would put forth your very statement as evidence that you very much do have a baseless and deep rooted fear.

that the Mafia is not just as active as it ever was do you?

And there is considerable difference between the Mafia and 'modern terrorists' as you call them. The 'modern terrorist' is not typified by Timothy McVeigh, he is typified by Mohammad Atta. He/She is not out to 'get even' over some real or imagined personal grievance, he/she is out to change the world and they don't care what they have to do or who they have to kill to accomplish that.

The 9/10 mindset sees terrorists as criminals, just a 'glorified' version of bank robbers and con artists; people to be arrested and jailed after they knock over the Seven-11. I for one am not interested in letting them blow up the mall or kill my wife and kids and then arresting them. Because their 'crime' doesn't end with the local mall or Flight 77 or whatever, it goes on and on until we do what they want us to do; accept Islam and give up our way of life to Allah. No thanks.

Just because the occasional defeatocrat comes up with a plan on paper to do something does nothing to counter the incredible amount of energy they expend in cirticizing each detail of the plans we have. And since the plan JFKerry puts forth is at best just a watered down Admin plan, then it only makes the DNC noisy obstructionism that much more troubling and cynical.

I'm not sure that a compelling case has ever been made that a president must follow the law.  Except for the fact that it is in our Constitution.  That is all.

this is criminal, I believe this is war. We have no common ground to continue the discussion.

You want to link it to the post?

I am an American and we are fighting for LIBERTY, not secret justice handed out in places like Gitmo. We - AMERICANS - are supposed to be a bit better than anyone else. We tell ourselves that. Then we spy on ANYONE we choose. Even you.

Even you

You forgot the ellipsis. Maybe because of the heavy breathing?

Given the powers vested under Article II, all Democrats can do is put plans on paper.  As far as Gov. Dean is concerned, I am glad he will not be running in 2008.

I think that the president should follow the procedures set forth under the law.  If the procedures are not adequate, he should seek to change them.  This is really a Pandora's Box.  One thing that I have been asking my many conservative friends is, "Would you want a Democratic president to have this power?"  If not, don't give it to the current one, because you know that the pendulum swings.

"Second, this will ultimately end up in the hands of the supremes, who will make a determination of whether it was right and can continue."

Lincoln ignored them.

The supremes should avoid this issue with extreme prejudice.

If congress doesn't like what the executive is doing with it war powers, they should defund it.

FISA is a convenience. It says, basically, that, if the executive follows these rules, we won't jump up and down about it.

Nothing more. SCOTUS could attempt to reign in the executive on this issue, and might have some success, but the success would be based on the political capital of SCOTUS, not on the law.

The executive is a sovereign branch. It can and should defend it own constitutional powers against encroachment from the courts.

I consider myself a civil libertarian. But it is a mistake - the very one made by those that claim the soviets had a great constitution - to think that The Law is what keeps us free.

Power opposed by power...  that is what keeps us free.

I can say that I've been amazed by many things that I have read here about and delighted by many others (thank you, Moe Lane, Thomas and co.), but I'm genuinely shocked by this.

Genuinely shocked.

Ah, I get it now. Attack the messenger. Don't deal with the issue, but make the speaker the issue. Typical. Terrribly, terribly typical.

Even if one were to grant this to the Democrats, terrorism is at best barely in their top five as far as threats to the American way of life.  Number one is of course George Bush, number two is "Anti-Choice Extremists", and the list goes on.

And once you eventually get down the list to terrorism, what indication have we been given from the Democratic party as a whole that they are actually serious about this issue?  Hopefully you can point me to one, I'd love the reassurance.  What I'd like to see is a serious policy on terror that is not phrased as a rebuttal or an attack, but a stand-alone plan for confronting islamic extremism.

I just don't think they've got it.  I've always thought the reason that dems put such a large emphasis on Osama Bin Laden is that they're eager for a goal to be met that would allow them to delcare victory in the war on terror and go back to more important things like ensuring abortion on demand for 14 year olds.

That OKC didn't have Islamofascist ties. Just because they weren't Islamofascists themselves doesn't mean they weren't being used as stooges by them... You know the whole enemy of my enemy thing. There has been evidence produced that they were connected to Al Qaida types. Of course it doesn't seem like the FBI is too interested in finding terrorism anywhere, either before or after 9/11.

The (unsolved) anthrax attacks weren't connected either, or the DC sniper attacks, or the guy who shot up the El Al counter at LAX. It's amazing how much terrorism isn't going on. I'm surprised they managed to connect 9/11 to terrorism.

First, there are constitutional authorities that find what the administration did (with the current information at hand) at the least, disturbing. These opinions come from both the left and the right.

There are also plenty of opinions from both the left and the right that he was perfectly OK.

Second, this will ultimately end up in the hands of the supremes, who will make a determination of whether it was right and can continue.

That is not at all clear. There is no court case. They probably won't be any court case. Nobody has standing right now to file because 1) they have to know they were monitored and 2) they have to show some kind of harm.

Wiretapping.

The only differences are who they are killing and why.

Not true.  The last time I looked the mafia's MO was not kill all infidels at any cost, especially Americans and Jews.  The mafia milked the system, they did not try to obliterate it.

cut off the head and the body withers and dies.  We can kill a hundred or a thousand terrorists, there will be more to replace them.  To take out a crime ring or a terrorist cell, you take out the boss.  It doesn't matter who was supplying or paying the boss, once he's gone (along with a few potential replacements) all the supplies and funding dry up

Unfortunately in this case, the head of the snake is the Middle East and the culture of hate, despotism, and funding that resides there.  The war in Iraq is a stepping stone in the path to cutting the head off of the snake, see the goals of the WOT here.

Even more unfortunate, is that there is a portion of the country that thinks the war is against George Bush and not the terrorist.  These people are a mixture of political opportunists, sore losers, anarchists, communists, and a few true believers that have unwillingly combined to combat the administration on both domestic and foreign issues.  The all may desire different outcomes for their efforts, but they are all counterproductive to the safety of the nation and the free world.

There is not really a parallel between the mafia and terrorists. They use different completely different tactics to achieve completely different objectives. You might as well compare them to corrupt executives or to shoplifters.

Besides, organized crime is hardly gone. The mob may be in decline but street gangs are everywhere. That is the new form of organized crime.

I would love a Democrat to have the power to go after Al Qaeda.  What I'd like even more is a Democrat with the desire to go after Al Qaeda.

but the statement should be revised to: If you do not want the President to have this power, then you should seek to change the laws.

Not

he should seek to change them

The war on terror is much more of a real war than the war on drugs. With drugs you simply have suppliers fulfilling demand for an illegal commodity. There is plenty of money in that and you can never solve the problem unless you eliminate demand... which is probably impossible. The GWOT is a completely different concept.

You have people committing acts of war against us (blowing things up, killing people) in an attempt to get us to change our policies, our way of life, our religion, you name it. This can be successful (and in fact has). Look at the UK/IRA conflict. The IRA didn't have it's own country, but a state of war definately existed between the IRA and the UK for a very long time.

It is a crime to conspire to commit murder, is it not?

If so, it is possible to convict someone of a crime without the actual murder having taken place. I believe that qualifies as prevention.

...but they have denied 6 warrants and modified almost 200 during the past 5 years. They have started interfering quite a bit with intellegence gathering.

that if it becomes politically expedient for the Dems to care about al Q, they will.

If one trudges throught the reams of pronouncements and declarations from the Clinton admin, you'd be hard pressed not to believe that Democrats were serious. In fact, based solely on these statements, you'd think the Democrats would be all for, fully behind, and in lock-step with what Bush and his admin are up to.

That they are not seems to indicate that the Democrats operate as if W is a more important enemy than al Q and Islamic nihilism. Sorry, but that's the perception created by Democrats.

Worry about it when it happens. It has happened in the past. It will probably happen again. Being outraged about our monitoring Islamofascists and their associates is pretty pointless if this is your concern. You can use this slippery slope argument as an argument against everything. It is equivilent to "Sure, we are killing terrorists in Iraq now but what if we started killing drug dealers in NYC"

that's going to leave a mark :-)

I guess I wouldn't mind getting all the "non-liberals" on the record as saying: "It's unconstitutional to make the President follow the law."

Here's your take: "The bottom line is this: if the President "detected" this information for the sole purpose of gathering foreign intelligence in time of war, that seems like a very clear-cut case of Article II powers to me, and if FISA is construed to make such activity illegal, then I share Cass Sunstein's concern about the constitutionality of FISA."

Problem is, you've mis-stated the proposition.  FISA doesn't make it illegal to gather foreign intelligence information.  The process Bush followed was illegal.  Congress can put limits on how the President does things, so long as those limits don't affect the core functions of the Executive.  Clearly this is within those bounds, but you maybe don't want to mention that, because you're trying to demonize, not make a valid point.

Related to the core functions, I'm starting to have my doubts that you even know what "clear cut" Article II powers are.  There aren't a whole lot of them listed, and the ones that are, are much more limited than you give them credit for.  Go through and look at them, and keep an eye out for how much unfettered discretion the President has; he can't even pick Officers of the U.S. without advice and consent, and you think he can do any kind of surveillance he wants concerning American citizens?

I also don't get how you think it would be so hard to obtain standing in a suit regarding FISA.  All you have to be is an "aggrieved person"; you don't even need to be harmed, just be a person whose activities were subject to surveillance.  And it won't be too hard to figure that out, if it comes to it, judging by the recent leaks.

It'm most amused by how you've picked and chosen your rhetorical ally on this one.  You wouldn't take Sunstein's word for anything else in the world, but so long as he wrote a half-reasoned blog post that came to the conclusion you liked, you've been waving his name all over RedState.  

Finally, the breathless concern with which you end  your post is comical.  Terrorists have enough brains and gumption to learn to fly and commandeer a host of airliners and fly them into big buildings in NYC, but they weren't bright enough before now to think that there might be surveillance on their communications?  That's rich.

We had an election in 2004 when such plans were offered.  Dems lost -- though the candidate we nominated was the one most serious about these issues, IMHO, which says something about what the Dem base believes.  

Also, I'm not interested in abortion on demand for 14 year olds until the public schools make sure these girls wouldn't rather be gay, first.  (J/K).  

Isolate out criticisms of the Iraq war, which may or may not have something to do with the GWOT.  From there, what's the beef -- that many Dems joined Republicans in seeking some changes to the PATRIOT Act before its extension (which only one Senate Dem opposed at all the first time around)?

Re: The legal system is designed to capture, try and punish someone after they have acted; the damage is already done.

That's only part of the story. The legal system also creates and threatens a set of penalties against malefactors in order to deter others who may be considering criminal actions. I see no real difference in kind (though certainly in scale) with military action. Is threatening would-be terrorists with destruction (both of their persons and of their cause) really different in kind than threatening would-be murderers with the electric chair?

Re: I guess the difference between thee and me, and between the 9/10 and 9/12 mindset is that I don't want to hold them accountable for their actions, I want to stop them from acting.

If I take this literally it would mean that you would have no desire or wish to punish a terrorist after the fact--they could go scot free and you wouldn't care! Somehow I doubt that's what you mean, but it is what you are saying.

But more importantly we do indeed use law enforcement to prevent crime as well as prosecute it after the fact. Now obviously the county sheriff will not have the resources to prevent terrorism in the same way that he may try to prevent burglaries, and the military and intelligence forces will be needed on a vast, international scale for that chore.  But the effort is ultimately the same, different only in scale.  

By the way do you imagine that we could ever prevent 100% of all terror acts? That seems utopian, like imagining we could prevent 100% of all murders or thefts.