Big Brother At Home

[35Pete]

Big Brother At Home

President Bush recently acknowledged the existence of a secret program that allows the NSA to eavesdrop on phone and email conversations of suspected terror subjects without a court warrant. Both Bush and Vice President Cheney took opportunities to stand behind the program this week, with Cheney calling the program "absolutely consistent with the Constitution."

Cato senior fellow in Constitutional studies Robert A. Levy says, "President Bush's executive order sanctions warrant-less wiretaps by the National Security Agency of communications from the United States to foreign countries by U.S. persons. Reportedly, the executive order is based on classified legal opinions stating that the president's authority derives from his Commander-in-Chief power and the post-911 congressional authorization for the use of military force against Al Qaeda. That pernicious rationale, carried to its logical extreme, renders the PATRIOT Act unnecessary and trumps any dispute over its reauthorization. Indeed, such a policy makes a mockery of the principle of separation of powers."

"Perhaps the government is justified in taking measures that in less troubled times could be seen as infringements of individual liberties. But if so, the Congress, not the president, is charged with establishing the rules that apply in exigent circumstances. The executive branch cannot unilaterally set the rules and enforce the rules, then eliminate court review of possible civil liberties violations."

....more....

http://www.cato.org/

[35Pete]

http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa443.pdf

In "Breaking the Vicious Cycle: Preserving Our Liberties While Fighting Terrorism," Timothy Lynch, director of Cato's Project on Criminal Justice, writes: "Like the power to arrest and search, the primary 'check' on the power to wiretap is the warrant application process. By requiring the police to seek advance approval from a judicial officer, the process allows wiretap applications to be vetted by an impartial judge. In this way, meritorious applications can be separated from fishing expeditions. Under the president's initiative, however, the attorney general retains exclusive decision-making authority to conduct monitoring without being subject to judicial approval, review, or oversight."

[Woody]

I could care less. If they want to listen to my drunk-ass talk on the phone let them. I know better than to say certain things over the line. :niterider

[35Pete]

IMHO Cato's position on Bush's spying is the correct one. We are not a totalitarian society.

Remember. Slippery slope.

[nehemiah]

IMHO Cato's position on Bush's spying is the correct one. We are not a totalitarian society.

Remember. Slippery slope.it's about time you came out of your cubby hole.

there's a bunch of fascists around here. get the guns! :rockon:

[35Pete]

it's about time you came out of your cubby hole.

there's a bunch of fascists around here. get the guns! :rockon:
I've always been a strong advocate of privacy rights.

[35Pete]

White House misread GOP privacy concerns

At 10:15 a.m. on March 17, Sen. John Sununu was on the telephone with newly installed Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, urging changes in the anti-terrorist Patriot Act. At 3:30 p.m. on April 18, Gonzales was in Sununu's Russell Building office to hear the same message from the senator. To no avail. The Bush administration never took Sununu's message to heart, leading to the current deadlock in the Senate.



Sununu, a New Hampshire conservative and one of the Senate's rising Republican stars, joined with three other right-of-center Republicans last week to defeat cloture. They thus prevented a vote on reauthorizing the Patriot Act. These conservatives contend that the bill's final version, while it is aimed at terrorists, actually threatens civil liberties of law-abiding citizens. But President Bush until now has rejected a three-month extension of the government's anti-terrorist powers while negotiations begin on an amended statute.

This state of affairs reflects a general failing and a specific misunderstanding by the Bush administration. Generally, it has ignored concern that the war against terror threatens the lives of ordinary Americans, as reflected currently in the revelation of the government's telephone tapping. Specifically, it has accepted faulty Democratic interpretation of a critical Senate contest in 2002.

For the past three years, the Democratic mantra has been that Democrat Max Cleland lost his Senate seat in Georgia because he was attacked for voting against Bush's homeland security provisions. Accepting that thesis, the president's strategists were unable to imagine any but the most left-wing lawmakers opposing any kind of anti-terrorist legislation. Actually, Cleland lost because he was too liberal for an increasingly conservative Georgia electorate and because his Republican opponent, Saxby Chambliss, was an excellent candidate.

If Gonzales was not listening when he talked to Sununu, the message should have come over loud and clear on Nov. 14. Sununu was joined by two other Republicans -- Larry Craig of Idaho and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska -- and three Democrats to protest the final version of a Senate-House conference. These senators wanted to require some connection with a suspected terrorist or spy in order to obtain sensitive personal information, thereby avoiding fishing expeditions.

They also protested the provision making it a crime punishable by up to a year in prison for revealing receipt of a ''national security letter'' seeking personal records. The change would require the government to show that the recipient of the letter intended to obstruct justice. It would safeguard against spying on law-abiding citizens via the Internet and e-mails. The letter also called for an end to the Patriot Act's current provision making an act of civil disobedience illegal.

When the conference committee made no changes in the bill, the senators wrote to colleagues taking the same positions, with the addition of another Republican signatory: Chuck Hagel of Nebraska. These four GOP dissenters are far from being members of the party's slender liberal wing. Lifetime records as measured by the American Conservative Union are Sununu, 95 percent; Craig, 94 percent; Hagel, 85 percent; and Murkowski, 74 percent.

Liberals who reflexively oppose anything Bush supports are overjoyed to welcome four apostates, but in fact they represent doctrinal Republican belief in individual rights against governmental power. That sums up the ingrained philosophy of Craig, who at age 60 has held public office since he was 29 years old and has been one of the Senate's unyielding champions of gun rights.

...more...

http://www.suntimes.com/output/novak/cst-edt-novak22.html

[bigdog]

Jesus if I hear the "I aint got nothing to hide so I don't care" meme one more time I swear my head will explode.

Some people just don't ****ing get it. I'm glad to see you do Pete.

For you viewing pleasure Woody.

http://www.aclu.org/pizza/