Letters to the Editor
Paul Daniel Ash
Published Letters: 704 Editor's Choice: 2
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and another thing
[Read the article: How much credence should Gen. Petraeus' reports be given?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Wasn't the dominant meme of the critics that the barn door should have been closed before the horse was gone?
Now the meme is, 'close the barn door, what are you, crazy?'
If anyone here has used the argument before that we should have closed the barn door, as General Shinseki proposed, how can you be so derisive about closing the barn door now?
Unless the real point is to flip when they flop, wiggle when they waggle, hip when they hop. Cause who doesn't love that?
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those wacky flyboys and their crazy practical jokes
[Read the article: How much credence should Gen. Petraeus' reports be given?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Dropping cluster bombs that look just like food packets:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2912617.stm
I don't know how they think this stuff up. Hilarious, I tell you.
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re:Hypoetheticals
[Read the article: Anonymous Liberal for Glenn Greenwald: The raw politics of telecom immunity]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Should corporations (or individuals for that matter) consider it their obligation to second guess law enforcement/security agencies of the US government
Yes. They should.
Please, allow me to counter-propose a different hypothetical for you: if the "law enforcement/security agencies of the US government" told you to rob a bank, would you "second guess" them? Even if you did not, would you really think "but they told me to" would be an adequate excuse?
The telecommunication corporations, and their attorneys, know exactly what is and is not a legal wiretap order. They did what they did in willful defiance of the law.
Breaking the law is a funny way to show "love" for our "homeland." If President Hillary had done the same, I daresay you would agree.
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not even slightly hypothetical
[Read the article: Anonymous Liberal for Glenn Greenwald: The raw politics of telecom immunity]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I am reluctant to contradict Constitutional Scholar Nazalbbfr, but the Supreme Court has never approved a claim of presidential authority to authorize acts outlawed by the Congress.
When Congress authorized secret wiretaps for national security purposes in 1978, it intended to prevent any future President from carrying out warrantless eavesdropping on Americans. It made its intention clear in five different sections,/b> of the law.
1) When Congress enacted FISA in 1978, it explicitly refused to provide an exception to enable the President to eavesdrop on Americans without getting a judicial warrant. It repealed the provision which the government had relied upon in claiming inherent presidential authority for warrantless wiretaps:
Nothing contained in this chapter or in section 605 of the Communications Act of 1934 shall limit the constitutional power of the President to take such measures as he deems necessary to protect the Nation against actual or potential attack or other hostile acts of a foreign power, to obtain foreign intelligence information deemed essential to the security of the United States, or to protect national security information against foreign intelligence activities. Nor shall anything contained in this chapter be deemed to limit the constitutional power of the President to take such measures as he deems necessary to protect the United States against the overthrow of the Government by force or other unlawful means, or against any other clear and present danger to the structure or existence of the Government. The contents of any wire or oral communication intercepted by authority of the President in the exercise of the foregoing powers may be received in evidence in any trial hearing, or other proceeding only where such interception was reasonable, and shall not be otherwise used or disclosed except as is necessary to implement that power.” Pub. L. No. 90-351, 82 Stat. 212 (codified as amended at 18 U.S.C. §§ 2510-2520 (1968)).
The government had argued in the Keith case that this provision supported the President’s constitutional authority to conduct warrantless wiretaps; the Court found it neutral on the President’s authority, not congressional authorization for warrantless surveillance. United States v. United States District Court [Keith], 407 U.S. 297, 303 (1972).
2) Congress also refused to enact the language proposed by the Ford administration that: “[n]othing contained in this chapter shall limit the constitutional power of the President to order electronic surveillance for the reasons stated in section 2511(3) of title 18, United States Code, if the facts and circumstances giving rise to such order are beyond the scope of this chapter.”
3) Instead, in FISA Congress enacted a comprehensive scheme governing all foreign intelligence wiretaps, including provisions for emergency wiretaps in advance of warrants and wiretaps of foreign embassies inside the US without warrants, because as foreign governments, they are not covered by the Fourth Amendment. It expressly provided that after a declaration of war the Attorney General could authorize warrantless wiretaps for 15 days.
Those steps alone would have sufficed to prohibit warrantless wiretaps, but the Congress went further.
4) It expressly made it a crime for government officials "acting under color of law" to engage in electronic eavesdropping "other than pursuant to statute." 50 U.S.C. 1809.
5) Congress again made explicit that the FISA and the criminal wiretap laws “shall be the exclusive means by which electronic surveillance … communications may be conducted.” (Now codified at 18 USC 2511(f).) Section 201 of the FISA as enacted in 1978 provided that:
Nothing contained in this chapter, or section 605 of the Communications Act of 1934, shall be deemed to affect the acquisition by the United States Government of foreign intelligence information from international or foreign communications by a means other than electronic surveillance as defined in section 101 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, and procedures in this chapter and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 shall be the exclusive means by which electronic surveillance, as defined in section 101 of such Act, and the interception of domestic wire, oral, and electronic communications may be conducted. Pub. L. No. 95-511, 92 Stat. 1783, § 201 (1978).
http://www.cnss.org/NSA%20Spying%20Memo.htm