Slashdot Mirror
Justice Department To Review Domestic Spying
orgelspieler writes, "According to the New York Times, Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine has opened a review of his department's role in the domestic spying program. Democrats (and some Republicans) have been requesting an all-out investigation into the legality of the so-called 'Terrorist Surveillance Program' since it was made public. But this new inquiry stops short of evaluating the constitutional legitimacy of the program." From the article: "The review, Mr. Fine said in his letter, will examine the controls in place at the Justice Department for the eavesdropping, the way information developed from it was used, and the department's 'compliance with legal requirements governing the program'... Several Democrats suggested that the timing of his review might be tied to their takeover of Congress in this month's midterm elections as a way to preempt expected Democratic investigations of the N.S.A. program."
And one reason alone...
"I'm sorry Senator, I cannot comment on the program due to an ongoing Justice Department investigation" - Alberto Gonzales, speaking to the new Democrat controlled congress sometime next year
Finkployd
Regardless if they're doing this to prevent a congressional hearing, I think all of Bush's cabinet are in up to their necks with this thing. They've promoted it, publicly praised it & even publicly defended it--I'm excited to see it publicly scrutinized & watch revisionist history write them all off as enemies of the constitution. I mean, my grandfather tells me about the horrible things the president authorized against Japanese-Americans during World War II & my father tells me the horrible things that Nixon did. I'm sure there will a time when I'm a haggled old coot that keeps telling my kids how lucky they are not to have a president that's pushing for government archival of their phone & internet records--and that's the only part I knew about which mean it must be twice as worse! So I put an onion in my pocket which was the style at the time
My work here is dung.
It's a preemptive move. Either the justice department can order an inquiry (Justice dept = Bush cronies), or Congress can order a special investigator (which would be independent).
So this is a preemptive move, designed to head off a full investigation.
But this new inquiry stops short of evaluating the constitutional legitimacy of the program
Unless, when they say "Justice Department" they actually mean "Judges," then of course it "stops short" of determining the constitutionality of a program. That's what judges do. They don't always do it well, but that's what they do.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
And how do you know this? Because they told you so? There are probably numerous terror cells living here in the US that the G-men are interested in, and monitoring internal US phone traffic is probably a good way to get a lead or two. If the G-men aren't doing it, the declaration that it is OK is one step away, since the international program sets a precedent. And soon after that, the G-men might say well, these criminals types are a "threat" so we need to include them too, and so on and so on.
Oh, right. That's ok. As long as it's limited to people whom someone, somewhere, for reason's you'll never know, has decided to call 'known terrorists'.
Phew.
That's a weight off my mind.
I guess it seemed like there was a problem, but really, there wasn't.
Well, I'm off to sit in a field of cotton wool hugging a giant kitten, in Fluffiton, the land where everything is soft and fluffy.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
Does anyone else find it interesting how slowly the slashdot crowd is responding to this topic? I figure it's one of three things, but I can't guess which:
- We're too tired of talking about this issue
- We realize that we all agree it's evil, and that no one is listening to slashdot
- We're somewhat afraid that this topic will actually be read carefully by the Justice Department
Beer is proof that God loves us, and wants us to be happy.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,,-62440 89,00.html
But that will not prevent the coming Congressional Wankfest and Witch Hunt. Henry Waxman as much as said so.
The next two years will be a reprisal of the inept, ill conceived and utterly useless Iran Contra Hearings.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
W says with this program he's "listening to al queda operatives in the United States make plans". My question is, if W knows al queda's phone number, why doesn't he go and bust them?
i n/view/)
In all these years one can count the number of terrorist convictions racked up by the DOJ on one hand. Experts are saying there is no vast al queda presence in the United States (see PBS Frontline "enemy within" http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/enemywith
Who the heck are they listening to...?
And your opinion is based on?
My understanding is that the true nature and extent of this program is still top secret. All that has been released to the public is a couple of leaks and a bunch of denials/justifications from the government. Given the fact that before the leaks Bush was claiming that they were getting warrants for all their tapping, what is the rational basis for believing what they say now? If this program is still top secret, doesn't the Administration actually have a duty to lie about or obfuscate the true nature and extent of the program?
The program as you and the Administration describe it could easily fit within the existing FISA law. Which raises the question, why risk the political and legal fall-out of avoiding the FISA court if you don't have to? Why is the lame duck Congress trying to push through new legislation to authorize the program if the program could actually fit within the existing legal framework?
What the headline calls domestic spying is actually the tapping of phone calls to and from people inside the United States to and from someone outside the United States who is a known terrorist or member of Al Queda.
Of course, and as we well know the government is totally infallible and would never falsely accuse anyone of being a terrorist or anything else. Even when they know they could get away with it because there is absolutely no independent oversight (gotta keep those activist judges out of the loop, they just complicate matters). We have a strict system of checks and balances in this country, and of course habeas corpus and presumption of innocence applies to us all....unless you are a known terrorists. "Known to who" you ask? "What makes one a known terrorist" you ask? Those are dangerous, un-American questions, boy. You best let the President do his work and keep us all safe and not worry about insignificant details like that.
It is not, as some believe, the government wiretapping phone calls internal to the United States.
Nope, absolutely not. I mean, before someone leaked it we did not think they were wiretapping any calls without properly obtaining warrants, but since it was leaked we know that they are wiretapping international calls without warrants. We still think they are not tapping internal calls this way, and what are the chances we would be wrong again?
And when it comes to the Internet, I'm sure those classified NSA server closets that AT&T has are where they keep the doughnuts.
Finkployd
So if being monitored by the government, without a warrant or any oversight, while you make a call to Canada from within your own house doesn't bother you, I assume you also wouldn't mind if the government listened to any phone calls you make purely inside the United States?
I'm curious why one seems acceptable to many anti-bill-of-righters but the other presumably is not.
I can't believe I voted for Bush the first time. Had I know he would willing to ignore our constitution and way of life in the name of safety, I would have never considered him.
You and me both, but really it was hard to forsee.
I mean, we just went through the Clinton years where Gore was spearheading the clipper initiative which would have effectively make privacy (and all non clipper crypto) illegal and given the government the ability to spy on everything, while having John Ashcroft emerge as the champion of privacy by leading the opposition to the clipper initiative. I really didn't expect the total and complete 180 on the issue.
Now I know better, both parties are want total access to our lives and supreme executive power (all in the name of keeping us safe). They just pretend to be outraged when the other party is in office and expanding those powers. Believe me, if the democrats take the whitehouse next election they will completely forget about their opposition to any spying and the republicians will suddenly oppose it.
Finkployd
While I can understand where you are coming from, answer me this:
How do they find out who is a terrorist and who is not? A part of that process is listening into RANDOM conversations with people they THINK might have SOME connection.
In translation: They are grasping at straws. What are you going to do when they grab yours?
Living With a Nerd
Diamon,
You are correct in that the spying program is not "Domestic". This is just a term thrown around by politicos that want to frame the debate as one where one side is "Protecting the freedoms of Americans" and the other side is "Trying to take away our freedoms". The truth of the matter is that this is a program used to keep tabs on terrorist suspects abroad and their contacts in the United States. It's important and necessary as one of the weaknesses of any terrorist organization is thier communication link. As they are not a nation-state with the resources to develop thier own communications technology, they must rely on civilian technologies to for thier CAC functions. By tapping into these lines of communication we can thwart their efforts to attack us.
The problem with many of those that don't like this program is that they see Terrorism in much the same way that the Clinton administration did. As a law-enforcement problem. That type of limited vision is how we ended up with 9/11 in the first place. By not treating terrorism as what it is, a MILITARY action against the US and other countries by an organized but decentralized force, and assuming that subpoenas, police and lawyers will be effective in stopping a global jihad, we place ourselves directly in the line of fire for another terror attack.
But there are plenty of people on Slashdot with mod points that just don't get that. Of course, many of them also think that Michael Moore is a visionary and Al Gore is an Environmental genius. There's no accounting for Common Sense I guess.
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
Seriously, when they start frog marching DOJ officials for high crimes and misdemenors, I'll believe that congress is sincere. Until that point I'll be treating this as a dog and pony show to appease the rabble.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
so they could take over the Iraqi Oilfields
I seem to recall a few years back when Bush was claiming that the war would be paid for with Iraqi oil. Of course, now that the cost of the war is expected to pass one or maybe two trillion dollars, Iraqi oil couldn't pay for it, so it's easy to backpedal on that claim.
You are correct sir.
No, he is wrong, there are two programs. One which tapped calls internationally as the grandparent posted, and a second one that collected phone records on nearly every single American's domestic calls. Did you call in for pizza? Did a terrorist call in for pizza (God forbid that terrorists actually run the pizza delivery place, mafia style)? Does it matter? Who knows! Nobody knows what the NSA is going to use such an enormous block of data for, since the vast majority (99.999999999999%?) of the calls have nothing to do with terrorism. Google other articles about Qwest's refusal to participate to see the millions in juicy taxpayer dollars they passed up that the other telecoms were apparently all too happy to suck out of your tax dollars for this service.
is infested with many of the same moonbat types
It's a shame the infestation hasn't managed to drive out the infestation of ignorant Bush supporters who can't even keep track of what their president is doing. Maybe we need to swallow a cat to get the spider now?
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
the program is 'limited' to people who are suspected of having contact with foreigners with links to al Qaeda
God help us all if Kevin Bacon ever ends up on a watchlist. I have a Bacon number of 2.0.
<i>First they came for the actors who worked with Kevin Bacon. And I said nothing. And then they come for the people who worked with the people who worked with Kevin Bacon...</i>
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
Don't you love the ability to choose between the two options given to you?
A) Democrats
A) Republicans
(no, that's not a typo)
MABASPLOOM!
What the headline calls domestic spying is actually the tapping of phone calls to and from people inside the United States to and from someone outside the United States who is a known terrorist or member of Al Queda. It is not, as some believe, the government wiretapping phone calls internal to the United States.
Would the people that determine the known list of terrorists be the same ones who were certain that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction?
It has publicly come out that they are wiretapping domestic calls.
From the NSA warrantless surveillance controversy article article at wikipedia:
"On May 22, 2006, it was reported by Seymour Hersh and Wired News that under this authority, the NSA had installed monitoring and interception supercomputers within the routing hubs of almost all major US telecoms companies capable of intercepting and monitoring a large proportion of all domestic and international telephone and Internet connections, and had used this to perform mass eavesdropping and order police investigations of tens of thousands of ordinary Americans without judicial warrants. " [Emphasis mine]
Here is the link to the Hersh article, and here is the link to the Wired article.
Please, wake up.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
The NSA warrantless wiretapping is already officially illegal.
Bush violated the FISA. The FISA is an exception to basic Constitutional guarantees of protection from government privacy invasion and arbitrary searches, within an extended compromise with rare, extreme cases where the government claims extraordinary necessity for speed and secrecy that the normal due process cannot accommodate.
Bush violated the FISA exception that requires him to get a warrant. Therefore he violated the Constitution. Many times, over many years. As a matter of policy, with a large staff behind him. Bush is a criminal of the highest order. That means impeachment. You or I would go to Federal prison for years and be bankrupted. Bush will clear brush at his ranch.
--
make install -not war
- This war on terrorism is our new Cold War. It will last a generation or two.
- Because we are at war it is necessary to engage in certain behaviors--renditions, torture,
domestic spying, secret prisons, etc.
- We cannot tell you what we are doing because it would compromise national security during a
time of war.
- The courts cannot review what we are doing because it will compromise national security during
a time of war.
- Any newspaper reporter or news outlet that reports a leak of these programs can be put under
oath and forced to reveal sources, under threat of going to jail for contempt.
- Only select members of Congress can know what we are doing. But they cannot tell anyone because it will compromise national security.
- When Congress passes laws, the president has the right to ignore these law if he believes they
infringe upon his war powers or his role as Commander in Chief.
- The courts cannot review the president's decision in rule no. 7 because it would compromise
national security.
These rules have the very convenient effect of disabling ALL of the checks and balances on the executive branch of the government. Frankly, unless many thousands of Americans are dying, violence is erupting everywhere, and this country is teetering on the brink of economic/political oblivion, I see no reason to install an emergency autocratic government. Even if we were at that point, I would still want some above-board cost/benefit arguments explained to me as to how I'm going to be safer in reality (as to just "feeling" safer) by giving up some of my civil liberties and watching the world learn to hate us.Much like the rest of his political strategy (Iraq war, etc), Bush puts forward nothing but a flim-flam job of justifying inflated neo-con theories of the use of discretionary executive force. How nice it would be to make all the trains run exactly on time, if we could just arrest anyone who used to make them run late? Fascism has a certain appeal when you don't realize that it actually is fascism.
We need checks and balances in the country.. anybody who doesn't believe that should closely read the Federalist Papers. Those guys were certified geniuses in the realistic exercise of power. They had the benefit of 1,000 years of European wars and history to examine human nature at its Machiavellian worst. They knew EXACTLY what they were doing when they set up checks on presidential power, they envisioned internal and external threats to the country every bit as clear and present as they are today.
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, however, there is. -Berra
After all, you have no proof one way or the other. So yes, we go by what has been released to the public so far and we don't need to make up more conspiracy theories.
FISA doesn't allow the government to spy on communication between Americans and terrorists without a warrant, you lying sack of shit:
Notwithstanding any other law, the President, through the Attorney General, may authorize electronic surveillance without a court order under this subchapter to acquire foreign intelligence information for periods of up to one year if the Attorney General certifies in writing under oath that--
(B) there is no substantial likelihood that the surveillance will acquire the contents of any communication to which a United States person is a party; and
Period. That's what the law says.
There's no other way to intercept without a court order, or at least a retroactive court order. (There are plenty of ways, however, to intercept with one.) Now, we can argue if that requirement is a good idea, or if it can be removed without constitutional issues. But it's right there, in the law. The Attorney General did not authorize the spying under that rule, because he knew he was listening to Americans. So the president is not 'withstanding other laws', specifically the law: 'A person is guilty of an offense if he intentionally engages in electronic surveillance under color of law except as authorized by statute'.
So, as the executive branch has, you know, already admitted breaking the law(1), so maybe taking their word as to to, exactly, how much of the law they are breaking is not a good idea.
And stop saying 'the government'. I trust the government to follow the law. 'The government' includes the judicial branch issuing warrants and the legislative branch doing oversight of the program in general. It's the executive branch that decided to operate outside of that framework.
1) Yes, they have. Their 'AUMF authorized it' theory, which was actually only advanced by the media whores and not the administration, was shot down in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, where the courts said that authorization to invade a country didn't magically invalidate other laws, especially laws designed to cover, duh, war time. The AUMF could not, and does not, void FISA, anymore than it voided the UCMJ.
The only other thoery they have, and the only one they've actually advanced, is their nonsensical one that basically reduces to 'If the president does it, it's not illegal', which is just so manifestly incorrect under our system of government that it's actually hard to explain why, except to explain that all people must follow the law at all times unless explicitly noted.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
The NSA is part of the NSA. The military does not go to civilian courts for monitoring communication on battlefields. Once the NSA discovered that a known enemy (the wiretap target) has contacted someone within the US, they pass this information to the FBI. The FBI at this point needs to go to the FISA court to make the person within the US a target of a wiretap. Note that it has be reported that FISA judges will not grant a warrant purely on information from the NSA. The FBI must find some other information to support their request for a wiretap.
This is similar to any other wiretap in that the warrant. The warrant does not cover the people that call or receive calls from the target. Police can use information collected from monitoring the target to get wiretaps on others.
How is this illegal? The NSA is doing their job with the primary target. It is completely legal to generate leads off of the primary target. Further investigation on the people that contact the primary will require further warrants. This is the acceptable way of doing things and has been for quite some time.
And how do you know if a person is a terrorist? Obviously, by convicting him of it in a court of law. Until then, the person being spied on is a lawful private citizen, with all the rights affirmed by the Constitution!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
While I generally agree with you on most points, I'll have to take exception to this one. The fact that people misuse a term to cloak their misdeeds does not mean that the term never had a cogent meaning, or that it is devoid of substance.
Would you say that "the word 'new' doesn't mean anything," for example, just because "New!" has been plastered all over thousands of products that weren't new at all? Or would you just say that the people who misused the word were lying?
I am a conservative. As such I have vocally opposed almost everything that this administration has done, since the spring of 2001 (at the time, it was Cheney's energy task force and their handling of the Florida recount that had me up in arms). If you google for my posts here and elsewere you will find a consistent pattern motivated by a single, clearly conservative theme:
Don't throw out, risk, abandon, or dismantle something of value for vague or incoherent reasons, no matter how swell the flim-flam show.
And on and on. This isn't a recent rejection of Bush on his way down; I have been mad had him and his ilk far longer than 80% of his present critics, and on principled, conservative grounds. Google me if you want proof.
--MarkusQ, conservative curmudgeon and proud of it.
If by "terror suspect" you mean "person who lives outside the United States," then I can see how you make a lick of sense.
Otherwise, given that the Justice Department has steadfastly refused to give any details on who is being monitored (to avoid "aiding the terr'ists") you don't know who is being monitored, or for what reasons. You have no way of gauging their decisions on who should and shouldn't be monitored. You have no way of gauging whether anyone's civil rights are being violated. You have no way of gauging whether the people running the program have valid probable cause for being suspicious of the people they're listening in on.
All you have is the promise of your president that the people we're spying on are bad people or are talking to bad people. But if they already know that, then why can't they just get a warrant? I can see only two possible reasons. The first is that these wiretappings really don't pass the sniff test. The second is that the Executive branch no longer feels constrained by the Judicial branch. I leave it to you to decide which is scarier.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
The truth of the matter is that this is a program used to keep tabs on terrorist suspects abroad and their contacts in the United States. It's important and necessary as one of the weaknesses of any terrorist organization is thier communication link.
If that's the truth of the matter then prove it.
Oh right, you can't can you? You, in fact, have no sane reason whatsoever to believe that ridiculous nonsense, do you?
In fact, all you have done is repeat a proven lie by Bush, who has lied about damn near everything he's said.
So, no matter how many times you repeat the same ignorant lies after people have already posted the links *proving* you to be a liar, there are still people who pay attention. There are still people who actually like the idea of a free country and will stand up against idiotic liars like yourself whose cowardly bootlicking of known traitors demonstrates clearly their complete lack of character and their utter contempt for their fellow human beings.
So, nice try, Sparky, but a lie repeated over and over again is still a lie.
And you are still a liar.
An extremely ignorant one too as several people have already linked to the *proof* that you're a fucking liar.