Letters to the Editor
Published Letters: 1824
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@ DClaw1
[Read the article: The strong and tough Democrats]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I am truly stumped. News reports far and wide assume this "gap" exists, as do a great many people for whom I have great respect.
I've posted several times about this, both here and at Balkinization. You're right, of course. There was no bar against snooping foreign-to-foreign communications regardless of method, and no FISA court order requirement.
FWIW, §§ 1801(f)(3) and 1801(f)(4) are catch-all clauses to cover other modalities of communication [short-wave, HAM, voice conversations snooped through telescopic mikes, microwave links, signal mirrors, telepathy, etc] that might be used; they are different from the "wire" communications in § 1801(f)(2)). 50 USC § 1801(f)(4) may not have had an explicit requirement that the particiapnts all be domestic under an assumption that if the surveillance is done domestically, physical constraints would dictate that at least one of the targets in fact also be domestic. This may no longer be true (one could theoretically envision communication through bouncing a laser off a satellite or the moon, for instance).
"Wire communications" traditionally meant telephony. It's also encompassed computer communications using common carrier facilities, and has grown to cover also mobile telephony (in which at least part of the signal path is through radio transmissions).
Cheers,
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Ooops.
[Read the article: The strong and tough Democrats]
[Read more letters about this article: Here][DClaw1]: I am truly stumped. News reports far and wide assume this "gap" exists, as do a great many people for whom I have great respect.
[I said]: I've posted several times about this, both here and at Balkinization. You're right, of course. There was no bar against snooping foreign-to-foreign communications regardless of method, and no FISA court order requirement.
Forgot to add that James Risen, in today's paper, states the case properly, to wit that domestic interception was regulated by FISA only if one of the participants was in the U.S.
James Risen seems to be a good and thorough source.
Cheers,
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@ Ondolette
[Read the article: The strong and tough Democrats]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Best of all, when call your broker to buy their stock, you'll get a personalized thank you from your investment choice by email before you get off the phone!
I feel neglected. Nissed your list. ;-)
Cheers,
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@ rootless2
[Read the article: The strong and tough Democrats]
[Read more letters about this article: Here][Christopher Dodd]: I should have been more skeptical about it. I grew up in a time with the old anecdote of Kennedy sending Dean Acheson over to meet Charles de Gaulle to show him airiel photographs of Soviet missiles in Cuba. And they met in de Gaulle's office and de Gaulle said "Take these down. I don't want to see them." And Acheson asked: "why not"? And de Gaulle said: "the word of an American president is good enough for me."
This is how Chris Dodd excuses his gullibility in front of the Bush Administration? That he was lost in a dream about some past that never existed?
That was Kennedy. This is Dubya. Dubya was born with a lislver-toungued lie in his mouth (this was apparent to anyone who paid attention in 2000, and to Texans long before then).
Cheers,
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@DCLaw1
[Read the article: The strong and tough Democrats]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If the Democrats' overpaid consultants came up with that strategy, they hardly deserve a job at Wendy's.
They couldn't find a job at Wendy's. That's why they're on the DLC "welfare rolls".
Cheers,
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Some eedjit wrote:
[Read the article: The strong and tough Democrats]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Actually we'll contend the election was stolen and that any Democrat in the White House is illegitimate.
Yeah, I'm sure you will. But you'll look pretty stoopid since you won't have a half million more votes than the "winning" candidate. That won't stop you though. See, e.g., the Miami "citizen's riot". You're quite adept at brownshirt tactics, and will use them whenever you can. It's in your nature ... besides being all you have.
Cheers,
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@ DCLaw1
[Read the article: The strong and tough Democrats]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"Basket warrants" for all communications involving one person in a foreign country, without knowing where the other party or parties to the communication are located.
I really don't have a serious problem with such (as long as the foreign "person" is a legitimate "target". When a FISA court order is required, there's (hopefully) at least good reason to believe that the "target" is an agent of a foreign power, and I don't worry too much about recording all calls of such a person, even if they call someone in the U.S. Allowing such is consonant with current domestic wiretap law, where you don't need a warrant based on probable cause for all parties, just the "target".
Allowing snoops on all international communications, without more in terms of "suspicion" or "probable cause" (as well as court review of such) is a different matter.
If someone told the American public that from now on all international communications are fair game without a showing of need or cause, I suspect you'd see a hue and cry. If that's what it is, I'm agin' it.....
Cheers,
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@ prunes
[Read the article: Various items]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Here's an incredibly low-tech one:
Call your buddy at a payphone. He doesn't pick up, but counts the number of rings. There is an efficient data transmission protocol that will take a bitstring and turn it into a series of small integers. You can send any message this way, and there is no system that monitors the number of times a COCOT rings (jeez, I should hope not anyway!)
Actually, for CALEA taps, if it's a "call content" tap [i.e. Title III warrant] on your phone (or on the payphone), the call content is supposed to be "cut through" to the LEAs as soon as the termination attempt is made (which is to say, as soon as you hear ringtone) or at least as soon as possible.
FWIW, your hearing a "ringtone" doesn't mean that the other side is hearing the same thing (or the same number). Used to be the case, but for modern switching systems, the "ringtone" indication is done through out-of-band signalling, and is electronically generated as a "sound" locally by the switch at your end. You'll notice this sometimes when the other side picks up and you say you didn't even hear it ring....
Cheers,