The law is the law. Either every violation of it is in some way objectionable, or defenses like "this is necessary for the protection of the nation" are valid defenses, and cannot be dismissed by simple resort to the letter of the law. Apply the letter universally, or not at all.

-- Plumb Bob

Nothing you write contradicts what Glenn has written. The point is that only the guy who blew the whistle on serious wrong-doing is being investigated for a crime while the others skate. It is not even clear Tamm commited a crime at this point. Bushco claims their doodles to be state secrets who how could anyone tell? Thank quasars that the bunch of Bush wankers are in the way out!

Messy, ondelette. Potentially, really messy.

Good on you for picking up the implications and the significance.

President Clinton cannot be remolded into a "bad guy" very easily, but he did tread on the Constitution many times during his Presidency.

"President Clinton is apparently seeking to free his administration from any potential judicial interference with its wiretapping plans. There is a problem, of course, with the power that the president desires: it is precisely the sort of unchecked power that the Fourth Amendment's warrant clause was designed to curb."

According to a 1995 report by the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts

Context? What was he asking? What was at issue?

Janet Reno also made a public comment about her new surveillance capability. Something to the effect that, "J. Edgar Hoover would never contemplate what we can do today"

sorry, I can't find that particular citation.

Yes. And?!?!? Read my comment on capabilities versus justification.

The Clinton administration claims that it can bypass the warrant clause for "national security" purposes. In July 1994 Deputy Attorney General Jamie S. Gorelick told the House Select Committee on Intelligence that the president "has inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches for foreign intelligence purposes." According to Gorelick, the president (or his attorney general) need only satisfy himself that an American is working in conjunction with a foreign power before a search can take place.

R. Jeffrey Smith, "Administration Backing No-Warrant Spy Searches," Washington Post, July 15, 1994,p. A19

This is nothing new (although I disagree with it). IIRC, Troung indicated as much.

I think we have been moving away from our Constitutional protections for some time now, this was not a Bill Clinton original idea by any stretch. Whether Bill Clinton knowingly broke down those protections, or was valiantly pursuing crime and his government attorneys fouled up, remains to be argued.

Fair 'nuff. Argue away.

FWIW, Dubya didn't argue such. He just went and did it.

The real bad guy here is George W. Bush, but I must pose, is this why there will be no prosecutions? just how many Presidents would be dragged into a hearing over this? or will it end up like Abu Ghraib, where a handful of yeoman get pilloried and the real culprits get to write their memoirs?

Drag Clinton into the courtroom. Put him on as a defence witness. I wouldn't mind if such claims are rehashed and settled. And if Clinton broke the laws, cite him too.

Cheers,

So, what else can I say but kudos, dude!

This shit is their religion, and G@d help any who dare to differ, especially here.

My goodness, don't ever let them know that Obama won with JEWISH money. Don't you dare mention Penny Pritzker, Larry Sommers, Rabbi Arnold Wolf, Robert Rubin, or Rhambo Emanuel!

Gawd, then these turds would all land in the fan at once, bloke!

But, since the progressive lynch mob asks for the present point of this latest tempest:

You were sooo right in noting that 9/11 might have never happened if only one of Fannie Mae's latest disgraced millionaire functionaries, Jaime Gorelick, (who is probably Jewish too) had not set up rules in the Clinton DOJ to make it impossible for that FBI lady to sound the alarm about all those Arab 'students' learning to fly, and possibly prevent 9/11.

That was your point, right?

Ok.

So now the wonderful, peace loving, pwogwessive lynch mob can gang up on me.

Hello, my dears. (Dooshbag Looser, are you still rolling around in your own puke and feces, and thinking you are very very funny?)

As our dear President Bush once said, "Bring it."

These impotent lynch mob guys in their pony tails, with their vicious Bush Derangement Syndrome rage, will just love the very JEWISH Obama Administration, won't they?

And, for the list makers:

Barack's list is empty for now. Let's hope he does a great job, and I think he will do the best he can, as our wonderful George did:

1. He freed two nations from horrible tyranny and treated Moslems as equals in the family of man desirous of freedom, education and liberty. In Afghanistan, women are no longer shot in the head for painting their nails; in Iraq, no more rape rooms for Saddam and his decadent, malignant sons.

2. He kept us safe from follow on terrorist attacks including one on Ft Dix where I did my basic training

3. He helped improve urban schools with more federal money than ever so that I am proud to send my teens to a wonderful PUBLIC urban high school, far better than the one I survived 50 years ago.

SO, GWENN, ARE YOU PROUD OF WHAT YOU CREATED HERE?

STALIN.COM IS A PWOGWESSIVE LYNCH MOB, PERPETUALLY BENT OUT OF SHAPE BY BUSH DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, AND EVER READY TO POUNCE ON ANYONE WHO DARES TO DIFFER WITH THEIR KLUELESS ORTHODOX LEFTOID RUBBISH.

As the subject's the same, and the real "items" sought (the conversations, etc.) are the same, I don't have much issue with broadening the wiretaps to allow the "roving wiretap" ... as long as there's probable cause for the tap in the first place!!!!

Part of the problem with this logic is it makes the same assumption that the FISA revisions do. It completely ignores the fact that the third party being searched also has fourth amendment protections.

The fourth amendment protects both the target and any third party that is searched when pursuing information on the target. The idea that communications providers, from AT&T to the kid running a mail server in their dorm, somehow have less fourth amendment protections, because they provide communications services, is pernicious and ass backwards.

If we replace "voice communications" with "hunting knife", the idea of a warrant that didn't specify the place to be searched would be absurd. It would be a blank check to search every house.

I think part of the logic that got us here was the idea that because communications services were provided by a small handful of quasi government entities, the number of possible "houses" to search is very small. That is not the case today.

Besides the obvious fourth amendment issues, this kind of centralized old world thinking is going to eventually relegate the U.S. to third world status when it comes to communications technology. U.S. broadband penetration and bandwidth when compared to the rest of the world is already embarrassing considering our head start.