Well, since I am not calling overseas, much less calling known terrorist phone numbers, I can be sure that no legal action can be taken against me. Even if I was calling a terrorist, the FBI would *still* have to get a warrant (FISA or other) with some sort of evidence in addition to the NSA lead to continue to monitor my calls. The NSA can *NOT* get a warrant in a civilian court. The NSA is military. In this case, it is monitoring people and their cohorts whom have declared war on the US. How they do this is pretty much up to them. Remember Echelon?
So there is oversight. The FBI would have to use the courts for a warrant. There has never, ever been any reason that the military needs to get a warrant for anything they do in the battle field. They raid, they capture, they kill, they blow up stuff, etc without a warrant. It is not within the courts jurisdiction to tell the military what to do.
They have no standing in civilian courts. The courts can not assert themselves over military operations. This is clearly separated. It has been reported that judges have stated they will not grant a FISA warrant to the FBI based solely on NSA information.
What is the problem here again? I do not see why another law needed to be created when the NSA was already doing what it was supposed to do. The only thing that I can see is if the law allowed the famous "wall" to be lowered a bit so that information can more easily go between the NSA and the FBI. Which is trying to solve the whole "connect the dots" problem everyone was complaining about after 9/11.
Since the President is acting as Commander is Chief under the declaration for use of force, he is well within his executive powers to monitor battlefield communications.
It's not a battlefield - it's a war of ideology, if Vietnam & Korea didn't teach us anything, then I suppose we can try to fight that with guns again.
This has nothing to do with executive power or the Constitution. It seems to me that many wars have been fought over ideology.
by their own admission & by the terms of the current bill they say doesn't go far enough, they want total, unfettered freedom to monitor anything they want, anywhere, any time. Please explain, with specificity, how exactly that conforms to the 4th ammendment.
How is this different than what the NSA has been doing for its entire existence? The only difference that I know of is that the PATRIOT ACT allowed agencies to share this information. People blasted the government for not connecting the dots before 9/11. Sharing this information with other agencies is trying to solve that problem. The FBI still must get a FISA warrant from a NSA lead. I have read that some FISA judges have stated they will not grant a FISA warrant to the FBI if the lead comes from the NSA. My understanding is that this "wall" was lowered after the PATRIOT ACT, but some judges are still operating as if it is still there.
I don't trust the govt to restrict themselves to dealing with this 1 threat/reason/excuse for needing this power, and they have shown that they want nobody to be able to question how/why/when they are doing the monitoring. Therefore, there will be nobody else to reign them in.
This could be an issue, but I still do not understand how monitoring enemy communications is a violation of my rights. This has always been the case in intelligence gathering and war. If anything, people want to setup new rules that were not there previously.
China already listens in on my phonecalls to my parents, how much worse is the call quality going to be while the NSA is listening in too?
Well maybe the NSA should put a mole in China so they can monitor *all* communications.:)
Again, what warrants have the military or NSA ever had to get for monitoring enemy communications? Do troops have to get warrants to go into a town and engage in fighting with the enemy? Catching a US Person/Citizen communicating with an enemy seems to me a very important part of the job that the NSA does. It would not require a warrant if the primary person they are monitoring is an enemy outside the borders of the US. This similar to monitoring a known criminal within the US. People that call that tapped number can have their conversation recorded. This is has been an acceptable use of a tap for many years.
The Executive branch has had two other branches as oversight. Congress was informed and FISA judges apparently have been busy. Where has the President gone wrong legally?
When has the military required a warrant to do anything in the battle field? The NSA is part of the military.
If the police get a warrant to monitor some known bad guy and *you* call that tapped number, do the police need to get a warrant to record your call? No! This is similar to the NSA program. They are monitoring enemy communication. This has always been their job. They do not need to get a warrant for the secondary party. How is this different from the police monitoring a number? Is it their fault that the enemy is calling a US Person/Citizen? They should be allowed to pass on this intelligence to the FBI. Then FBI can then get a FISA warrant to monitor *you*. This is apparently how the program currently works since the FBI has complained about how much extra work the NSA has given them since 9/11. If this is somehow a violation of the law, then the law should be changed or clarified. It is stupid to blind ourselves to enemy communications.
Cars that have satellite radio interfaces in them can adapt better to iPods. Many iPod interfaces use the CD changer interface which does not have a way of sending back a track title. With the satellite interface the title *can* be sent back to the radio. This doesn't necessarily help the overall control of the iPod, but it will display something other than TR04.
For us people that want our SatRad *and* iPod there are interfaces that will allow easy switching between the iPod and the SatRad.
Considering that the Hezbollah wackjobs teach that they (and their view of Islam) need to re-take Spain and restore it to it's old glory when ruled under a Islamic impire, I very much doubt it is a discrimination and segregation issue.
There is a cease fire currently. The conflict is effectively over.
Traditionally a conflict is over with the other side is subdued to the point they have no choice but to lay down arms. A cease fire just means they'll stop shooting while everyone re-arms. In this case, this is especially true. Nothing has been resolved long term.
The difference in this case is that the NSA is tapping known terrorists. A question.... if the police requests a wiretap on some suspected crimal's phone line, do they also have to get warrants for each person that person talks to? I could be wrong, but I don't think so. The warrant for the tap is for the primary suspect. Anyone that person calls can get listened in on. This appears to be the case in the NSA wiretap program. If the NSA feels that the secondary contact is involved, they can pass this information on to the FBI. The FBI then gets warrants to continue to tap this person.
I'm puzzled about the comment in the bill that just before 9/11 they tried to get a warrant and couldn't. I have a hard time believing that.
They may be referring to the famous notebook incident where law enforcement didn't meet the bar to inspect the data contained on the future 9/11 participant's notebook. The NSA had more information that would have been able to meet the bar, but couldn't share this information with the FBI. The NSA is not a law enforcement organization, so they couldn't prosecute the guy. I think this is all covered in the 9/11 report.
Letters fall under Customs? Why does Customs have the right for search without a warrant? Does looking strange qualify for probable cause?
Did Lincoln get warrants to intercept telegraph communications?
It seems to me that there is more precedent for the President to intercept communications in a time of war than there is for Congress to take away those powers. This is where the meat of the issue is. Did a foolish president allow Congress to take away constitutional powers?
This is good. Now we are getting to the meat of the matter. This has been a good exchange, better than some of the discussions I have seen.
I am not a total defender of the administration, I just want a good discussion of the principles.
You point out the meat of the issue. Did congress try to take away executive branch powers with FISA? Did the president at the time have the right to give them up?
When this issue first came up I was against what the administration was doing. Now I am in the middle. It seems to me that there is historical precedent for warrant-less searches. For example, the customs agents do this every day when people enter the country. WWII we had letters opened and even censored.
I am still a little unsure of how much power the president should have with regards to this issue. FISA came out of people worrying about an abuse of power. At the same time, should there be a law that tries to prevent an abuse of power, but violates the constitution or should the president have the powers, but be impeached if the powers are abused? It seems to me that this is what the discussion should really be about. If the powers should be limited, then the constitution should be amended.
Do you think it was legal during WWII to have people's mail they were receiving from a foreign country to be opened? This did happen. I would like to know what legal repercussion the president faced for doing this during WWII. It would seem that the NSA monitoring phone calls would fall under the same authority that mail was opened during WWII.
Remember the NSA is operating under the military. They are not trying to build a case against you. That is up to the FBI. It seems to me that is how they got away with the Echelon project during the 90's.
Further evidence of this is in the bill referenced in the story we are discussing. The bill makes little mention of the NSA. It mainly mentions the Attorney General (Justice Department) working with the President. I don't think it mentions the DoD at all. I am no lawyer, but the bill seems to be written in the context of the justice system and not the military. I do not think this is an accident.
Since when did the NSA ever need a warrant? Please answer that question first. Now think about it a second. The NSA is an arm of the DoD, the military. When did the military go get a warrant to raid a village? They don't, because it is war. It is against an enemy.
Now think about this. The FBI has mentioned how busy they have been following leads to supposed terror cohorts (search NYT and WaPost articles). They mentioned having to get FISA warrants. Wow! Oversight! Gee! The FBI has to get a warrant to follow up on a NSA lead. Are you following me on this? The NSA does not need a warrant, but the FBI does. The FBI has to follow the rules of due process.
See the differences? Now lets have a discussion about how this should or shouldn't work. If you are saying the rules should now change and the NSA should now be required to get warrants, ok, fine. But this is not traditionally how it worked. The only change is that before the NSA should get intelligence on a US Person cohorting with a enemy and keep it secret! How stupid is that?
Law enforcement does still need a warrant to get evidence against a person. But the discussion is not law enforcement, the discussion is about NSA wiretaps. The NSA is not law enforcement, it is military. The NSA is a spy organization. They are spying on our enemies. If our enemies are trying to contact people inside the US there should be no reason for them to stop spying on them. That is dumb. If anything they should spy on them *more*. So what has been done after 9/11 is that the NSA passes intelligence to the FBI. The FBI has to seek a FISA warrant to get evidence against the person. Wow! A warrant! What do you know?
Now we can have a discussion about whether the NSA should be passing intelligence to the FBI. To be shocked that the NSA is spying on our enemies should not be surprising to anyone.
"The National Security Agency / Central Security Service (NSA/CSS) is believed to be the largest United States government intelligence gathering agency. It is responsible for the collection and analysis of foreign communications and for the security of U.S. government communications against similar agencies elsewhere. Officially established on November 4, 1952, the NSA is a component of the Department of Defense and has always been directed by a three-star flag or general officer. NSA is a key component of the United States Intelligence Community headed by the Director of National Intelligence."
So the NSA is military. Can you point to me when the military needs to go to domestic courts to do anything related to the operation of war?
The whole question is wrong. It's not whether the NSA can spy. That is what is what created to do. The question is can they pass intelligence to the FBI. To me, that answer should be a resounding YES!
NSA is military, not law enforcement. When did they ever get warrants? The FBI is law enforcement and requires warrants to collect certain types of evidence.
Again, I ask, when did the military (NSA) require warrants? If some one can point out when the NSA operated this way, I would like to know. Echelon certainly didn't get warrants for what the project. This whole thing is a red herring. The real discussion should be whether the NSA should pass leads to the FBI. This traditionally has been restricted, but after 9/11 that wall was removed.
Remeber NSA is military. FBI is justice department. Different branches of government.
When in the history US war did the military require a warrant to do anything? The NSA is military. It is not law enforcement. The FBI is law enforcement and therefore continues to request FISA warrants when the NSA gives them a lead. In fact is was reported (WashPost or NYT) that the FBI was complaining about all the leads they had to check out. it was slowing down the FISA process.
I really do not see anything that has changed. Remember Echelon? Did that project get FISA warrants?
Note that I've only used FreeBSD and OpenBSD. I've never saw the need to ever install NetBSD.
According to the post, NetBSD's threading is unstable. How can it be stable for modern threaded applications? It would seem that NetBSD would be a lousy choice for hosting a Java based web application. Web apps are a pretty big market.
As far as embeded goes. Linux seems to scale down pretty good these days. Motorola is shipping quite a few phones with Linux on it these days. I recently worked on a 12-port layer 3 switch from Netgear. What OS did it run? Linux.
It would seem to me that the best place to go to run BSD is Open, Free, or DragonFly.
And this is exactly why there has been much more success with adult stem cells than there ever has been with embryonic ones. There have been real cures with adult stem cells because the body will accept something that it "knows," otherwise there are problems with rejection. I have my doubts that the embryonic cells can overcome this problem (but you never know).
What I was trying to say is that it's not enough to simply state that the Bluray movies were using MPEG2. Then complain that it should be MPEG4/AVC. A Bluray disc could look just as good as DVD-HD even if it's using MPEG2 because the Bluray disc may be using a higher bitrate -- because it can.
I further pointed out that any broadcast content a person gets on their HDTV comes from a MPEG2 source. Broadcast MPEG2 can look pretty darn good.
Since Blu-ray supports highbandwith, what advantage is MPEG4/AVC going to give you? I would expect, given a high enough bitrate that MPEG2 will not look any different that MPEG4/AVC unless it's 4:2:2.
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Well, since I am not calling overseas, much less calling known terrorist phone numbers, I can be sure that no legal action can be taken against me. Even if I was calling a terrorist, the FBI would *still* have to get a warrant (FISA or other) with some sort of evidence in addition to the NSA lead to continue to monitor my calls. The NSA can *NOT* get a warrant in a civilian court. The NSA is military. In this case, it is monitoring people and their cohorts whom have declared war on the US. How they do this is pretty much up to them. Remember Echelon?
So there is oversight. The FBI would have to use the courts for a warrant. There has never, ever been any reason that the military needs to get a warrant for anything they do in the battle field. They raid, they capture, they kill, they blow up stuff, etc without a warrant. It is not within the courts jurisdiction to tell the military what to do.
They have no standing in civilian courts. The courts can not assert themselves over military operations. This is clearly separated. It has been reported that judges have stated they will not grant a FISA warrant to the FBI based solely on NSA information.
What is the problem here again? I do not see why another law needed to be created when the NSA was already doing what it was supposed to do. The only thing that I can see is if the law allowed the famous "wall" to be lowered a bit so that information can more easily go between the NSA and the FBI. Which is trying to solve the whole "connect the dots" problem everyone was complaining about after 9/11.
It's not a declared war
:)
Since the President is acting as Commander is Chief under the declaration for use of force, he is well within his executive powers to monitor battlefield communications.
It's not a battlefield - it's a war of ideology, if Vietnam & Korea didn't teach us anything, then I suppose we can try to fight that with guns again.
This has nothing to do with executive power or the Constitution. It seems to me that many wars have been fought over ideology.
by their own admission & by the terms of the current bill they say doesn't go far enough, they want total, unfettered freedom to monitor anything they want, anywhere, any time. Please explain, with specificity, how exactly that conforms to the 4th ammendment.
How is this different than what the NSA has been doing for its entire existence? The only difference that I know of is that the PATRIOT ACT allowed agencies to share this information. People blasted the government for not connecting the dots before 9/11. Sharing this information with other agencies is trying to solve that problem. The FBI still must get a FISA warrant from a NSA lead. I have read that some FISA judges have stated they will not grant a FISA warrant to the FBI if the lead comes from the NSA. My understanding is that this "wall" was lowered after the PATRIOT ACT, but some judges are still operating as if it is still there.
I don't trust the govt to restrict themselves to dealing with this 1 threat/reason/excuse for needing this power, and they have shown that they want nobody to be able to question how/why/when they are doing the monitoring. Therefore, there will be nobody else to reign them in.
This could be an issue, but I still do not understand how monitoring enemy communications is a violation of my rights. This has always been the case in intelligence gathering and war. If anything, people want to setup new rules that were not there previously.
China already listens in on my phonecalls to my parents, how much worse is the call quality going to be while the NSA is listening in too?
Well maybe the NSA should put a mole in China so they can monitor *all* communications.
Again, what warrants have the military or NSA ever had to get for monitoring enemy communications? Do troops have to get warrants to go into a town and engage in fighting with the enemy? Catching a US Person/Citizen communicating with an enemy seems to me a very important part of the job that the NSA does. It would not require a warrant if the primary person they are monitoring is an enemy outside the borders of the US. This similar to monitoring a known criminal within the US. People that call that tapped number can have their conversation recorded. This is has been an acceptable use of a tap for many years.
The Executive branch has had two other branches as oversight. Congress was informed and FISA judges apparently have been busy. Where has the President gone wrong legally?
When has the military required a warrant to do anything in the battle field? The NSA is part of the military.
If the police get a warrant to monitor some known bad guy and *you* call that tapped number, do the police need to get a warrant to record your call? No! This is similar to the NSA program. They are monitoring enemy communication. This has always been their job. They do not need to get a warrant for the secondary party. How is this different from the police monitoring a number? Is it their fault that the enemy is calling a US Person/Citizen? They should be allowed to pass on this intelligence to the FBI. Then FBI can then get a FISA warrant to monitor *you*. This is apparently how the program currently works since the FBI has complained about how much extra work the NSA has given them since 9/11. If this is somehow a violation of the law, then the law should be changed or clarified. It is stupid to blind ourselves to enemy communications.
Why is this so complicated?
Cars that have satellite radio interfaces in them can adapt better to iPods. Many iPod interfaces use the CD changer interface which does not have a way of sending back a track title. With the satellite interface the title *can* be sent back to the radio. This doesn't necessarily help the overall control of the iPod, but it will display something other than TR04.
For us people that want our SatRad *and* iPod there are interfaces that will allow easy switching between the iPod and the SatRad.
Considering that the Hezbollah wackjobs teach that they (and their view of Islam) need to re-take Spain and restore it to it's old glory when ruled under a Islamic impire, I very much doubt it is a discrimination and segregation issue.
There is a cease fire currently. The conflict is effectively over.
Traditionally a conflict is over with the other side is subdued to the point they have no choice but to lay down arms. A cease fire just means they'll stop shooting while everyone re-arms. In this case, this is especially true. Nothing has been resolved long term.
Maybe Gore should have setup a parallel government. I think that is the plan for the looser in Mexico.
Yes, that is true, but local precincts in maybe parts of the state have Democratic controlled election supervisors.
The difference in this case is that the NSA is tapping known terrorists. A question.... if the police requests a wiretap on some suspected crimal's phone line, do they also have to get warrants for each person that person talks to? I could be wrong, but I don't think so. The warrant for the tap is for the primary suspect. Anyone that person calls can get listened in on. This appears to be the case in the NSA wiretap program. If the NSA feels that the secondary contact is involved, they can pass this information on to the FBI. The FBI then gets warrants to continue to tap this person.
I'm puzzled about the comment in the bill that just before 9/11 they tried to get a warrant and couldn't. I have a hard time believing that.
They may be referring to the famous notebook incident where law enforcement didn't meet the bar to inspect the data contained on the future 9/11 participant's notebook. The NSA had more information that would have been able to meet the bar, but couldn't share this information with the FBI. The NSA is not a law enforcement organization, so they couldn't prosecute the guy. I think this is all covered in the 9/11 report.
Letters fall under Customs? Why does Customs have the right for search without a warrant? Does looking strange qualify for probable cause?
Did Lincoln get warrants to intercept telegraph communications?
It seems to me that there is more precedent for the President to intercept communications in a time of war than there is for Congress to take away those powers. This is where the meat of the issue is. Did a foolish president allow Congress to take away constitutional powers?
This is good. Now we are getting to the meat of the matter. This has been a good exchange, better than some of the discussions I have seen.
I am not a total defender of the administration, I just want a good discussion of the principles.
You point out the meat of the issue. Did congress try to take away executive branch powers with FISA? Did the president at the time have the right to give them up?
When this issue first came up I was against what the administration was doing. Now I am in the middle. It seems to me that there is historical precedent for warrant-less searches. For example, the customs agents do this every day when people enter the country. WWII we had letters opened and even censored.
I am still a little unsure of how much power the president should have with regards to this issue. FISA came out of people worrying about an abuse of power. At the same time, should there be a law that tries to prevent an abuse of power, but violates the constitution or should the president have the powers, but be impeached if the powers are abused? It seems to me that this is what the discussion should really be about. If the powers should be limited, then the constitution should be amended.
Do you think it was legal during WWII to have people's mail they were receiving from a foreign country to be opened? This did happen. I would like to know what legal repercussion the president faced for doing this during WWII. It would seem that the NSA monitoring phone calls would fall under the same authority that mail was opened during WWII.
s hs_spy_progr.html
See the discussion at http://uchicagolaw.typepad.com/faculty/2006/01/bu
Remember the NSA is operating under the military. They are not trying to build a case against you. That is up to the FBI. It seems to me that is how they got away with the Echelon project during the 90's.
Further evidence of this is in the bill referenced in the story we are discussing. The bill makes little mention of the NSA. It mainly mentions the Attorney General (Justice Department) working with the President. I don't think it mentions the DoD at all. I am no lawyer, but the bill seems to be written in the context of the justice system and not the military. I do not think this is an accident.
Since when did the NSA ever need a warrant? Please answer that question first. Now think about it a second. The NSA is an arm of the DoD, the military. When did the military go get a warrant to raid a village? They don't, because it is war. It is against an enemy.
Now think about this. The FBI has mentioned how busy they have been following leads to supposed terror cohorts (search NYT and WaPost articles). They mentioned having to get FISA warrants. Wow! Oversight! Gee! The FBI has to get a warrant to follow up on a NSA lead. Are you following me on this? The NSA does not need a warrant, but the FBI does. The FBI has to follow the rules of due process.
See the differences? Now lets have a discussion about how this should or shouldn't work. If you are saying the rules should now change and the NSA should now be required to get warrants, ok, fine. But this is not traditionally how it worked. The only change is that before the NSA should get intelligence on a US Person cohorting with a enemy and keep it secret! How stupid is that?
Law enforcement does still need a warrant to get evidence against a person. But the discussion is not law enforcement, the discussion is about NSA wiretaps. The NSA is not law enforcement, it is military. The NSA is a spy organization. They are spying on our enemies. If our enemies are trying to contact people inside the US there should be no reason for them to stop spying on them. That is dumb. If anything they should spy on them *more*. So what has been done after 9/11 is that the NSA passes intelligence to the FBI. The FBI has to seek a FISA warrant to get evidence against the person. Wow! A warrant! What do you know?
Now we can have a discussion about whether the NSA should be passing intelligence to the FBI. To be shocked that the NSA is spying on our enemies should not be surprising to anyone.
Wikipedia:
"The National Security Agency / Central Security Service (NSA/CSS) is believed to be the largest United States government intelligence gathering agency. It is responsible for the collection and analysis of foreign communications and for the security of U.S. government communications against similar agencies elsewhere. Officially established on November 4, 1952, the NSA is a component of the Department of Defense and has always been directed by a three-star flag or general officer. NSA is a key component of the United States Intelligence Community headed by the Director of National Intelligence."
So the NSA is military. Can you point to me when the military needs to go to domestic courts to do anything related to the operation of war?
The whole question is wrong. It's not whether the NSA can spy. That is what is what created to do. The question is can they pass intelligence to the FBI. To me, that answer should be a resounding YES!
NSA is military, not law enforcement. When did they ever get warrants? The FBI is law enforcement and requires warrants to collect certain types of evidence.
Are you still confused?
Again, I ask, when did the military (NSA) require warrants? If some one can point out when the NSA operated this way, I would like to know. Echelon certainly didn't get warrants for what the project. This whole thing is a red herring. The real discussion should be whether the NSA should pass leads to the FBI. This traditionally has been restricted, but after 9/11 that wall was removed.
Remeber NSA is military. FBI is justice department. Different branches of government.
When in the history US war did the military require a warrant to do anything? The NSA is military. It is not law enforcement. The FBI is law enforcement and therefore continues to request FISA warrants when the NSA gives them a lead. In fact is was reported (WashPost or NYT) that the FBI was complaining about all the leads they had to check out. it was slowing down the FISA process.
I really do not see anything that has changed. Remember Echelon? Did that project get FISA warrants?
Note that I've only used FreeBSD and OpenBSD. I've never saw the need to ever install NetBSD.
According to the post, NetBSD's threading is unstable. How can it be stable for modern threaded applications? It would seem that NetBSD would be a lousy choice for hosting a Java based web application. Web apps are a pretty big market.
As far as embeded goes. Linux seems to scale down pretty good these days. Motorola is shipping quite a few phones with Linux on it these days. I recently worked on a 12-port layer 3 switch from Netgear. What OS did it run? Linux.
It would seem to me that the best place to go to run BSD is Open, Free, or DragonFly.
And this is exactly why there has been much more success with adult stem cells than there ever has been with embryonic ones. There have been real cures with adult stem cells because the body will accept something that it "knows," otherwise there are problems with rejection. I have my doubts that the embryonic cells can overcome this problem (but you never know).
What are the channels other than "test" using?
What I was trying to say is that it's not enough to simply state that the Bluray movies were using MPEG2. Then complain that it should be MPEG4/AVC. A Bluray disc could look just as good as DVD-HD even if it's using MPEG2 because the Bluray disc may be using a higher bitrate -- because it can.
I further pointed out that any broadcast content a person gets on their HDTV comes from a MPEG2 source. Broadcast MPEG2 can look pretty darn good.
Since Blu-ray supports highbandwith, what advantage is MPEG4/AVC going to give you? I would expect, given a high enough bitrate that MPEG2 will not look any different that MPEG4/AVC unless it's 4:2:2.