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Domestic Spying Records Ordered Released
CokoBWare wrote to mention an eWeek report on the NSA's domestic spying program. A federal judge has ordered the Department of Justice to release records from the program by March 8th. From the article: "In ordering the Justice Department to expedite the FOIA request processing, Judge Henry Kennedy Jr., of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, said that the department's opinion that it could determine how much time is needed was 'easily rejected ... Under DOJ's view of the expedited processing provisions of FOIA, the government would have carte blanche to determine the time line for processing expedited requests,'"
"Vague suggestions that inadvertent release of exempted documents might occur are insufficient to outweigh the very tangible benefits that FOIA seeks to further--government openness and accountability," he wrote.
This judge is my new personal hero (temporarily displacing Alton Brown), and exactly the type of person who SHOULD be a judge. He actually seems like he cares about people and knows what kind of stuff gets pulled behind the scenes.
He may as well have come out and said "Sorry, guys, you're full of shit. Give us ALL the records, and soon."
On March 8th, which page of the newspaper will this story be buried on and who will Dick Cheney have to shoot to get that to happen?
(sarcasm doesn't always transmit well via text...)
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This case will eventually wind up in the Supreme Court, where its chances are unspectacular. Cases like this are usually filed in a court that the filing party knows or strongly suspects will be sympathetic to their claim - a practice known as "judge shopping". I would be absolutely shocked if this suit lost in the first round.
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Wow, an example of checks and balances. I thought that was pretty much gone now.
Next steps: The White House will declare him an "activist judge" (whatever that really means) and unpatriotic. Meanwhile a religious zealot on the ABC Family channel will pray for his death.
But nothing is more patriotic than those in power keeping the government open. Because nothing could more empower the citizens.
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Even if these records get released and prove to be, as claimed, solely people with direct links to known and documented terrorists, that still does not exonerate the establishment of the program. The real issue was never a matter of whether, at this particular time, the NSA was listening in on you or your grandma, it was about precedent. The real issue is whether it is acceptable for an agency like the NSA to conduct domestic surveillance without oversight, without warrants of any kind. In the past the law has been such that various types of surveillance were permitted, but as these cases have come to light each loophole has been blocked - it was precisely for this reason that the Foreign Intelligence Services Court, and the corresponding act, was originally created. An about face and progressive weakening of such laws sets a dangerous precendent, and in my view shouldn't be tolerated. Don't let the report as to what surveillance was conducted blind you to the deeper issue of whether such a precedent is acceptable.
Jedidiah.
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It's safe to release all of the domestic spying records, now that Bush got his literal "get out of jail free" deal from his Republican Congress.
After terrorists attack our ports through infiltrating the royal United Arab Emirates corporation that just got handed the ports management contracts, I expect Congress will pass a law that says that "no one could have anticipated that the ports would be infiltrated through their foreign managers".
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make install -not war
To turn the "law and order" types' favorite phrase back on them, the law is the law. If the government will not obey its own laws, then it has no moral authority to operate. Ironically, that's a Biblical concept, not a liberal idea. According to scripture, God's authority to stand in divine judgement handing down damnation or salvation comes from his perfection and consistency. God follows his own laws, thus he has total moral authority. But how many Bush supporters would freak out at such an argument?
In pure secular terms, the only result of giving discressionary power in 99% of all cases out there is to have the government not obey the law. The government must obey its own laws in order to ensure law and order, and having a law that says "the state shall do what it wilt, shall be the whole of the regulation of the government's conduct" is not a law. It's a license to anarchy in the pejorative sense of the word.
If our government is unwilling to even use its Article IV powers to shut down the borders in violation of NAFTA and all travel from rogue states and Saudi Arbia, then it doesn't need to even speak about new powers.
So, you have one branch saying, "Let's see what really happened" and the other two saying, "Nothing to see here; move along, move along".
That's surviellence of an enemy, and given the Presidents power to wage war, it's not any stretch of the imagination that this sort of activity is within his authority.
Congress determines that authority.
Do you think that Britain and the US got warrants when they were trying to break Germanys enigma code in World War 2?
Last I checked Germans weren't American citizens and afforded the rights granted by the Constitution
A significant majority of the US population approves of this activity
Apparently you have read any polls lately.
If you don't want to be monitored by the government, then don't talk to overseas agents of an organization that has killed Americans, wants to kill more, and is killing our troops every week. It's not that complex.
The FOIA request wants to make sure that that is really the case. Negligence and poor planning is what is killing a lot of our troops every week.
To those who are worked up about this,
I question your seriousness about preserving our country.
Preserving our country means preserving the system of check and balances and assures that no one is above the law.
I question your patriotism.
Blind following of leadership is not as patriotic as questioning it.
Richard Nixon thought so, but somehow that didn't help him any.
"A significant majority of the US population approves of this activity, and they will be voting next election"
A significant percentage of the US population also believes that Saddam Hussein personally piloted both of the airplanes used in the attack on the World Trade Centre. And yes, many of them will somehow figure out how to vote in the next election.
"Sure, why not- but we're not talking about civil liberties here, we're talking about monitoring the communications of people who want to kill us, and their agents in our country. The fact that so many don't realize this- or plainly deny it because of a visceral hate for the current administration- sickens me, and you have just read the result of that disgust."
Actually, you're talking about the laws of your country and the principles upon which it was founded. You may want to try reading books instead of burning them, you may learn something.
I question your seriousness about preserving our country.
I question your patriotism.
and most of all....
I question your judgement
I question your motives. Wrapping your country in plastic and then never sitting on it will "preserve" it, but I wouldn't want to live there.
Actually, some spy intercepts were purely domestic - but that's not the point. It's called "Domestic" because one person is in the US, and it isn't a purely international communication.
Since this program resulted in thousands of dead end leads, only an idiot would claim that only terrorists were monitored under this act.
If the NSA was only spying on terrorists, then FISA would have granted warrants (even after the wiretap had started). Given that the administration decided to end run around FISA, it's reasonable to speculate who else was being spied upon - particularly considering this crowd's track record with honesty.
No rational person can make the case that the disclosure of this program has damaged national security, so by making it you prove your irrationality. It's not like Al Qaeda didn't know that the NSA existed, or that the NSA was spying on phone calls. No one, and I mean no one is arguing that the NSA shouldn't be able to spy on terrorists. Why in the world would terrorists care whether or not the NSA got warrants to do this? The best excuse this administration can offer is that reminding the terrorists that the NSA taps phone calls damages national security, otherwise "they forget". If keeping the NSA out of the headlines is that important, then they'd damn well better follow the law.
It's not about eavesdropping on people who want to kill us - otherwise those thousands of dead ends wouldn't have happened. It's about whether the President can pick and choose which laws he wants to follow by invoking the excuse of a perpetual war, relegating Congress to a powerless debating soceity.
The candy asses are on the right - people who will happily give away this country's proud heritage because they're terrified of the big bad swarthy bogeyman. Grow a spine.
but to demand investigations in order to discover the identity of the leaker(s).
And what exactly is your problem with this? You can't honestly say that there should be no such thing as classified information, unless you'd like every poor SOB who's trying to keep on eye on various actually bad guys to be strung up and shot. The classification of intel methods and collected information exists specifically to allow it do what it has to do. If you tell Kim Jong Il what time of day the next high-altitude drone will be overhead which of his slave camps, or CC the lunatic president of Iran on the intel you're sharing with EU security people about his nuclear program... you're pretty much asking for the consequences, including the unpleasant deaths of the people living in those countries and working, with our spooks, to counter the influence/acts of the mullahs or the so-honorable KJI.
Assuming you don't actually refute the need for classified and covert activities on a number of fronts, then how can you complain about tracking down the people who deliberately leak such specific operational information? It sounds like you're more in the "classified is OK, but only on the stuff I think should be classified, and then definitely the administration should be investigating the people who leak it" camp. But that's not what you're saying, and should be. At which point, you should be more clearly spelling out what you think should, and should not be classified when it comes to intercepting a phone call from a known Al Queda-type contact in, say, Lahore, Pakistan to a used-only-once-ever cell phone that was in a batch of fifty or so bought with cash. You know, a cell phone that is untraceable to a person, will never be used again, and can never be part of a FISA warrant scenario by its very nature. Is reminding the guys using those phones that we know when the person in Lahore is dialing a number from that batch of disposable phones something you think should be leaked? Is that constructive, from your perspective?
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If it doesn't get overturned, Cheney will just threaten to shoot the judge in the face.
The Gonzales will just give him the same tripe they've been spouting on TV. Constitution, use of force authorization, blah, blah, blah. The Bush administration isn't going to let some piddly little district court judge push them around. Especially when they've managed to load the Supreme Kangaroo Court with their cronnies.
They'll claim it's necessary for "security" and there will be a 5 to 4 vote overturning the order and they'll go right back to doing whatever the hell they feel like. This will only further demonstrate how little the current administration values the rule of law. And if you haven't figured that out by now, you're never going to. For rest of us it will simply be one more razor slash on the Constitution.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
supplement that reading with this informative little clip from msnbc: http://www.prisonplanet.com/video/Countdown-nsa-Ha yden.wmv
"I DARE you to make less sense!"
Classifying illegal activities isn't right.
Leaking information about classified & illegal government activities isn't wrong.
Nothing you said addresses that fundamental issue.
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With one out of two parties in the US, and the tapping act itself also happening in the US, I think it would be dishonest to say that it was clearly not domestic spying. It also certainly isn't quite the same as tapping Al Capone or Martin Luther King. Luckily, we have laws that cover this. They just were ignored.
I'm a Republican. You're a Tool. or maybe...a Troll. Not sure which.
You Sir are playing word games. A person inside of the US is being spied upon. That IS DOMESTIC spying. The fact that the OTHER party is outside of the US does not mitigate that fact.
I realize that the Bush administration and its shills don't like being caught in the act of domestic spying but word games won't make it any less egregious.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
Some of us don't want to live in a pickle jar, and we need to start taking action. The executive branch is running an unprecedented power grab. Congress has no balls, so some judicial oversight is needed to ensure new measures improve security without sacrificing civil liberties or violating the constitution.
I am convinced this is the WORST administration in our country's history. Over the last few years, I've seen the administration leak the name of a CIA operative whose spouse disagreed with them. I've seen the United States use torcher on a grand scale and then criticize the newspapers that print the photos as inflammatory and inappropriate. I've seen a Vice Admiral in the United States Navy say the following about accountability (regarding Abu Ghraib):
"I don't think you can hold anybody accountable for a situation that maybe if you had done something different, maybe something would have occurred differently,"
I was an officer in the Navy. Actually, technically I'm still an officer in the Navy, and this quote from a high ranking officer makes me ill.
I've heard reports of secret prisons, secret courts, warrantless wiretaps... I sometimes wonder if the Neo-Con artists are taking bets on how many actions that prompted our secession from the British Empire they can get away with. "Okay you won on the secret courts, but double or nothing we can't get away with impressing British sailors." More importantly, it makes me wonder what atrocities we are not hearing about, and how these are being kept secret.
The real terrorists, the ones doing the most damage to this country are those currently in power. They criticize anyone who takes their illegal acts to press as unpatriotic and then continue to do whatever the hell they want. Can anyone think of some other world governments in the last 73 years or so that used censorship and propaganda like this? Once we lose the rule of law we will be no better than our perceived enemies. It is a slippery slope, and we are already a good ways down with high velocity.
We are completely mollified by the conveniences we have become dependent on. Since few understand the principles the country was founded on, we vote for whoever meets our immediate needs (in some cases, after they've convinced us what these needs are). As a result, we've lost all the statemen.
Where are the congressmen with the huevos to say "This is more power than a good man should want or a bad man should have." as did Sen A. Vandenburg regarding FDR's bill to allow additional presidential appointments to the Supreme Court? This is not a partisan issue, and this administration is not made up of Republicans. They are fascists and need to go quickly. The only good news is they are incompetent (see Katrina). Imagine the damage they could do if they knew their ass from a hole in the ground.
It torques my ass that we elected a frigging puppet in the first place. The fact that there are so many who cannot cognize or refuse to cognize what's going on and think Bush is their friend or a 'Patriot' is just icing on the cake.