[abe]

Originally Posted by Saad

So you think the administration got warrants for the phone conversations of Americans in accordance with FISA? Make your own thesis, don't tell us to wait for the president.

There are my transcribed notes of the Charlie Rose interview of the Attorney General.

If it's (understandably) hard for you to make sense of my scratchings, why not invest a buck and watch the interview yourself. Click the link and at LEAST watch the first three minutes of the show's preview for free.

FISA doesn't cover ALL electronic surveillance...must ask yourself several questions:

Who is the target? (Is the target an American citizen?)
Where is the target? (Is the target in the United States?)
Where is the acquisition occurring?
What are you trying to acquire? (Is it radio communication or is it wire communication?)

FISA lays out a framework to obtain electronic surveillance. To do that the AG must submit an application to a special court, the FISA court, and the application must include a wide variety of things.

After 9/11 the POTUS challenged everyone in the administration to think about ways we could better protect American citizens from a similar kind of attack. And we quickly realized we had holes in our surveillance because of the procedures in FISA.

If we had information about a particular person that we believe was communicating with (al qaeda) we were not able to initiate surveillance as quickly as we thought would be necessary in order to get valuable information.

And so the President asked, 'do we have the capability and do we have the need to get this information?' Yes, we do have the capability, we do have the need in certain cases to get this information more quickly.

And the question is, do I have the legal authority to authorize this kind of activity.

And we believe the President does have the legal authority...

CR: VP Cheney said two criteria needed to be met, it had to be al qaeda related and it had to be a call to or from outside of the United States.

One end of the comm had to be outside US and where we have reasonable grounds to believe that one party to that communication is a member or agent of al Qaeda or an affiliated terrorist group.

Now, that determination is not made by some political hack somewhere. This is made by an intelligence professional out at NSA.

These are people who know about it, who know al Qaeda tactics, al Qaeda communications, al Qaeda aims, as Gen. Hayden has said, the Deputy Director of national intelligence for this country, these people are the best at what they do, they are very good at this. They know about al Qaeda and they would be in the best position to make an evaluation as to whether or not someone isn't in some way a member or affiliated with al Qaeda.

The POTUS drew the line that this secret surveillance program would not be used to listen to two parties (two al Qaeda members communicating with each other) within the US. Other tools, however would be used and that includes the provisions of FISA.

There is an emergency authorization provision within FISA which allows the AG to give his verbal authorization for surveillance to be initiated immediately and the court order is issued after the fact (within 72 hours) but before AG Gonzales gives that ok he must know that ALL the FISA requirements are met.

This isn't like a 72 hour "Hall Pass" to engage in "free electronic surveillance."

When he gives the authorization he's required by law to make sure all the FISA requirements are met. Then with 72 hours they must submit "a very thick application a formal legal brief, almost," to the FISA court, for their consideration and hopefully, their approval.

Article 2 of the Constitution and the Forces Resolution are not the only possible mechanisms which may authorize legal search.

All searches DO NOT require a warrant.

There is within the Supreme Court's jurisprudence a special needs exception to the normal warrant requirement recognized for many many years by the Supreme Court.

If you're talking about activities outside of normal law enforcement, in the national security area, where speed and agility is critically important, that special needs do provide an exception for the normal warrant requirements. So they believe the activities directed by the POTUS is fully consistent with long standing presidential practice and fully consistent with the special needs jurisprudence of the Supreme Court.

And because it is limited in terms of authorization in time, every 45 days it is renewed, it is based on the continuing threat posed by al qaeda, it is reviewed periodically by the NSA Inspector General, there is oversight by the General Counsel's office, because we have provided periodic briefings to leaders in Congress, we believe the combination of all those factors make these searches reasonable under the Supreme Court jurisprudence...

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...3ACharlie_Rose

[Saad]

So in conclusion, you don't want to formulate your own thesis and defend it. Is FISA obsolete?

[Dork.]

Originally Posted by Saad

So you think the administration got warrants for the phone conversations of Americans in accordance with FISA? Make your own thesis, don't tell us to wait for the president.

Yes, and remember that an original thesis statement (not one that is merely copied from source material) is one of the tried-and-true ways to construct a worthy essay.

An example for you:

This administration reminds me of when the first iteration of Napster was popular. They were trying to build a business out of this, and the website was littered with references to "music sharing" and "peer-to-peer file sharing", with nary a peep about the fact that individuals were committing copyright infringement through the service. The people running the business thought that what they were doing was perfectly legal, of course, or else they never would have made a business out of it. Users also thought that what they were doing was perfectly legal, or at least ought to be. And in the grand scheme of things, the things that these people were doing were probably helping artists more than it hurt them. But when the lawsuits came and the courts got their hands on it, they disagreed with all those rationalizations, saw only the copyright infringement, and Napster went bankrupt settling all those lawsuits, and now Napster is an emasculated shell of what it once was.

The lesson: Just because someone says something is legal doesn't mean it really is legal, or that it will stand up in court! (Unless you redefine "legal" to mean "Whatever the executive branch wants it to mean". Where's my essay on the "unitary executive", abe?)

[Saad]

Exactly Dork.. There's a precedent of presidents misleading us. There is a precedent of the NSA and other intelligence agencies betraying us. We aren't required to trust them, and the founders didn't design the system so we had to. What's wrong with judicial oversight?

Kind of a cool blog on the utility of domestic wiretappings:
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat?pid=79968

I don't know if it's just me, but your 'folksy' online persona is kind of grating. *ignore*

[abe]

Originally Posted by Saad

So in conclusion, you don't want to formulate your own thesis and defend it. Is FISA obsolete?

What is your goal here? You are asking me to argue something that I feel needs no arguing. The FISA statutes exist. The FISA court exists. The President and AG find it useful and it works adequately in certain circumstances.

From my point of view it is obviously not obsolete as judged by those in the position to use it.

Try looking at this matter from a managerial perspective. You have people on staff whose job it is to be experts on certain matters. They know all there is to know about the matter of FISA. I trust them. If you are asking me to stick my nose in that business and play amateur civil rights attorney and formulate an opinion, I don't see the point unless I was in school and it was my job to debate one side of this issue. Or to write a paper on it.

But for us here, it is irrelevant.

It would be like my asking you to formulate a thesis re: automobile tire rubber compounds and tell me whether you think the formulations with a higher natural rubber content is obsolete.

The answer is that unless you are an engineer or have a specific interest which makes discussion at that level a matter of importance to the average driver, the course most people will take is to shrug their shoulders and ask:

Does it work well? Is it safe? Will it last a long time and wear well? Is it affordable?

Yes? Ok, good. Now, next issue.

And that's my answer to you. If you are looking for a fight you will find it eventually. But I get the feeling you have prepared for this fight and I see nothing that needs to be asserted beyond the apparent facts and nothing that needs defending.

If you can get someone else to debate you on this, feel free.

[abe]

Originally Posted by Dork.

Where's my essay on the "unitary executive", abe?)

Would you settle for a cheap joke about a "SANITARY executive???"

[Dork.]

Originally Posted by abe

Would you settle for a cheap joke about a "SANITARY executive???"

That's better than a picture of Clinton as the Unitard Executive!

(Drat, I can't find one of those in Google....)

[abe]

Originally Posted by Saad

Exactly Dork.. [...]

I don't know if it's just me, but your 'folksy' online persona is kind of grating. *ignore*

Dork., I have never found your "'folksy' online persona" to be "grating" at all. It's more about the CONTENT of your posts that sometimes chaps my ass.

How can you possibly go on being happy with the knowledge that you are on his *ignore*?

[Dork.]

Originally Posted by abe

Dork., I have never found your "'folksy' online persona" to be "grating" at all. It's more about the CONTENT of your posts that sometimes chaps my ass.

How can you possibly go on being happy with the knowledge that you are on his *ignore*?

If it's OK with you, I'll let you apply your own chapstick, OK?

[Saad]

So your thesis is that someone should change something somewhere at some time, but you're not sure what? Kind of boring.

You're not on my ignore list (no one is).

[abe]

Originally Posted by Dork.

If it's OK with you, I'll let you apply your own chapstick, OK?

That may be THE most clever way I've ever seen of someone telling another to go xxxx himself!

It's almost as clever as someone talking to himself or to no one in particular.