This weeks poll asks:
The Senate Judiciary committee approved two bills. One that allows warrantless wiretapping of calls and one that requires special court warrant approval. Which bill should the Senate pass?
Your options are:
I Support National Security Warrantless Wiretapping
I Support Court Approved Warrant Required Wiretapping
Discuss your choice in this thread – the post is open for discussion on the topic.
View previous poll results.
Related in the news:
Don’t Let the Senate Legalize Warrantless Wiretapping – Amherst Times
GOP Leaders Back Bush on Wiretapping, Tribunals – WaPo
Rove blasts warrantless wiretapping decision – CNN
Republican Rift Over Wiretapping Widens – WaPo
Related in blogs:
Bill authorizing warrantless wiretapping stalls – Think Progress
The Secret Room — The Bush Administration’s Surveillance Game – New America Media
Tech of NSA Wiretapping (and why the warrants argument is dumb) – Code Better
Distinguishing Original Meaning and Original Intent – Volokh Conspiracy
Not digging Judge Anna Diggs Taylor – Ann Althouse
The FISA court was in place before this debate. Most of those involved have expressed that it has been used and it has only been desscribed as burdensome or otherwise annoying by the Bush Administration. The argument that it delays the administration’s ability to act in a timely manner has not been convincing. If notifying Congress or getting approval from the FISA court, which may be one in the same, is too time consuming, it suggests that the quantity of wiretaps requested would equate to a “fishing expedition” and not the result of effective investigation. Maybe the ability to investigate effectively should be the discussion. It appears the ability to share information between ivory towers has not improved much. Possibly that would provide more benefits than the desire to ignore important safeguards. Some new or innovative strategies might also prove beneficial.
You make a pretty strong argument. One of the things brought out effectively in the “Path to 9/11″ series was the bickering and turf wars between agencies. That kind of bureaucratic culture isn’t easily changed, and not just by shuffling titles and reorganizing. Those issues should be addressed before safeguards are diminished.
I see the need for warrantless wiretaps. Obviously, the powers that be see that need to. Just to reiterate the point: You do the wiretap and have 72 hours to get the warrant AFTER you did the wiretap! I agree with both Stanford and Robert. Communication is the key and we need to teardown the walls that we built!
As the poll is asked, it is much too general to make an answer IMO.
Once again, I must remind the readers of this blog that the NSA program IS NOT domestic wiretapping. It is not being used to conduct an “investigation” leading to a prosecution. It is being used to collect intelligence for the fighting of a WAR. They are NOT wiretapping domestic phone calls without warrants, they are intercepting international communications from suspected foreign agents outside of the country to suspected enemy agents inside of the country. The conduct of war and the collection of the intelligence necessary to do so are specifically set forth in the Constitution as being the sole responsibility of the Executive branch. The FISA court was and is an abrogation of Executive power. The very title of the court indicates that is borders on unconstitutional. The title is FOREIGN (outside of the US and therefore NOT under the jurisdiction of the US Judiciary) Intelligence (intelligence gathering as a part of conducting national defense is the sole responsibility of the executive branch) Surveillance (that’s pretty self explanatory) Act. So the Legislative branch, with the assistance of the disgraceful Jimmy Carter, passed an act to prevent the Executive branch from being able to collect intelligence on foreign agents overseas without involving the Judicial branch who are not constitutionally supposed to be involved in matters outside of the US. With the judiciary’s ability to block any warrant through judicial inaction, to claim that 72 hours is more than enough time is simply ignorance of the procedures involved. This isn’t Tv where they simply pick up the phone ans say “I need a warrant” and “Poof” they get it. It simply doesn’t work that way. BTW there is NO right to make international phone calls, so it would be no problem for Congress to pass a law stating that any international call may be monitored for the purpose of national security.
As for briefing Congress, even Thomas Jefferson stated that to tell Congress anything is confidence is to essentially tell the world as there are members of Congress who will leak classified information to the press and thereby the enemies of this country for the purpose of political gain.
All told, if the NSA monitors all phone calls going into areas known to harbor terrorists, perhaps we won’t have another 9/11. Who will the left blame when an attack that we would’ve known about with the wiretap happens because we couldn’t get a warrant in time to utilyze the information, much the way we were denied access to Massoui’s laptop prior to 9/11?
Since when have conservatives supported the federal government invading their homes and their lives? What happened to a national government that can be drowned in the bathtub? What happened to freedom, and that nagging little thing called the Fourth Amendment.
You 66% have ruined the GOP and betrayed your Constitution.