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Administration Claimed Immunity To 4th Amendment
mrogers writes "The EFF has uncovered a troubling footnote in a newly declassified Bush Administration memo, which asserts that 'our Office recently [in 2001] concluded that the Fourth Amendment had no application to domestic military operations.' This could mean that the Administration believes the NSA's warrantless wiretapping and data mining programs are not governed by the Constitution, which would cast Administration claims that the programs did not violate the Fourth Amendment in a whole new light — after all, you can't violate a law that doesn't apply. The claimed immunity would also cover other DoD agencies, such as CIFA, which carry out offline surveillance of political groups within the United States."
I thought the whole constitution had no application to the whole government?
After all, isn't it just a scrap of paper?
Is crushing a suspect's child's testicles illegal?
John Yoo: "No, [if] the President thinks he needs to do that."
Aren't you guys tired of living in a Police State and a constant state of war - when are Americans going to stand up and demand their rights back - I keep waiting,,,,
Wait, then who does it apply to? Foreign governments spying on US citizens? US government spying on foreign citizens? Foreign governments spying on foreign citizens?
I thought the whole idea behind the 4th amendment was to say that the US government spying on US citizens was off limits. I'd like to hear why they think one of the other three situations is the real reason that pesky little amendment is in there.
I'm one of those religious, conservative nutjobs that gets mocked on this site, and I find this outrageous. Here is the Fourth Amendment:
That's been suspended?? Doesn't apply to military operations?? If the citizens have no rights over against the military, why do we have the Third Amendment?Now I see that there is a difference in the Third Amendment between "in time of peace" and "in time of war," but realistically, this "time of war" against terrorists can NEVER be officially and completely over. There are no official enemies, so there can be no official truce.
The government is overstepping its Constitutional bounds, and it needs to stop. We have to be careful that we do not lose our identity as a country of freedom via our efforts to protect that freedom.
The government claims to be above the constitution, a document made to protect individual rights from a tyrannical government. How is that not news??
You were critically hit for no damage. The bruise will look nice, and maybe the scars will make good party talk.
The part of all this that really gets to me is that the administration feels that they have the right to do all of this in such an underhanded fashion. This is a democracy, they work for the people. If the government really felt that the fourth amendment didn't apply or was somehow holding back effective terror efforts, and that most people would not object to them taking on this extra dimension of authority, there are ways to change that. Amendments can be themselves amended, for example. At the very least, some kind of public announcement or passage of some clarifying law is called for. This kind of thing, where they decide the law doesn't matter, and then they don't tell anyone about it, is indicative of a government that feels itself to be above the people, or, at best, the feel that they 'know what`s good for us'. It may be a '$f-bomb piece of paper'... but the theory of open, participatory government ruled by the people, with oversight, checks-and-balances, and restraint is what this nation was founded on. Given the inability to directly preserve these ideas in a concrete form, we substitute symbols in their place. Its just a piece of paper. Its just a bolt of cloth (flag). Its just an amalgamation of stone and concrete (the White House). But these things represent something greater, some over-arching idea to which we have all subscribed. Nobody, not me, not you, not Mr. Bush, can just go and decide its meaningless because its inconvenient. And the fact that we have to find out about this kind of thing from watchdog-style organizations and not from our government directly is evidence of the idea that there are people in government who have forgotten what its all about.
"The law applies to you, not us.
Sincerely,
The Administration"
Thomas Galvin
So anyone still doubt if the great republic has crossed its Rubicon yet?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubicon
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
The Constitution is not a law. It's the framework of how the country operates. It applies to everyone in this country regardless of political position, military rank or accumulated wealth. Unlike laws, which can be written to exclude certain groups, the Constitution applies to everyone in all 50 states, all citizens abroad, and all people in US facilities abroad. To think any differently is treason.
Actually, it's more like "Only if and when it will get them votes".
Fanatically anti-fanatical
Yeah, and it'll stay that way until someone figures out how to fix the gerrymandering problem. As long as the parties decide who gets the safe seats, they'll pick the people who can raise the most money and avoid the people who have a spine.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
Only if it's the second amendment, apparently.
The Bush administration doesn't speak for every Republican or Conservative in America. You might have noticed his dismal approval rating...to get that low he ticked off a lot of Republicans too.
As far as the original point of the story. The fourth amendment doesn't apply to 'domestic military operations' because the whole idea was to NOT have domestic military operations against regular citizens.
1. Make the military above the law
2. Make everything a branch of the military
3. ?????
4. Oh crap...
Why yes, I recall a law called "posse comitatus", which specifically forbids using the military for law enforcement. But the traitorous Republican congress slipped in an amendment in 2006 that effectively nullified it.
But again, the Decider is above the law.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
So the Fourth Amendment is in the Constitution precisely to limit domestic military operations.
In short -- Dear Sir, I fear thou doth protest not enough.
You're missing a very important 20th century development in the history of both parties: the aftermath of the Civil Rights Act. The reason this was critical is that prior to that period, the Democrats were the party of southern white racists (e.g. George Wallace), and undermining that base by creating the Civil Rights Act led directly to the Republican dominance of the southeastern US that continues to this day.
I am officially gone from
Seriously, as long as both Democratic and Republican party leaders are members of the Council on Foreign Relations think tank as well as followers of its "suggested" policies, everything you Americans see happening on your Congress, Senate, Executive, Courts etc. that seems like divergence is actually hardly more than make believe.
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
Actually, 100% of the current debt is W's.
Utter nonsense. The national debt was over $5 trillion when Clinton left office. That can't be blamed on W. There was a year or two during the Clinton administration when there were budget surpluses, thanks largely to capital gains taxes on the Nasdaq bubble, but they only reduced the debt, they didn't come close to eliminating it. Also, the unfunded liabilities of social security, medicare, government pensions, etc. are at least $40 trillion, and if the annual increases in these liabilities were included in the budget calculations there would never have been a surplus.
It is true that the national debt now is about $9 trillion, a big increase during the disastrous administration of W. But keep in mind that less than a quarter of the $4 trillion increase is due to the war that liberals (and paleocons) hate, the rest is due to domestic spending and the sort of world policing (NATO, bases in Japan and Korea, etc.) that the liberals tend to support. W backed the prescription drug medicare benefit, right along with Kennedy and Clinton. That added hundreds of billions of unfunded liabilities all by itself. As the baby boomers retire more and more of those unfunded liabilities will come due and be transformed into actual debt. For this reason you will see the national debt continue to balloon regardless of who becomes President next.
No, that's conservatives. The Republican party no longer represents conservative values.
I understand you're trying to make this into some sort of Red vs. Blue thing, but I have to say that it's really disheartening to read posts like yours, and see people nonchalantly dismiss Constitutional protections.