Boy, I must say I admire this work. Those Yanqui Communists at the Drudge Report ought to have their phones tapped.

Good job, son. You are one smart fellow.

Assuming 2 minutes for you to notice the post, and 2 minutes to draft your response, leaves 5 minutes for your in-depth consideration of this work of 3 years. Bravo. I hope your clients appreciate your ability to so quickly get to the heart of a matter.

Punishing the Guilty
 

Congress holds hearings and amends the statute.

What Bush has yet satisfactorily to explain is why the statute was insufficient--the application is ex parte, and they can do it retroactively. Basically what he's saying is that rather than amend the statute to make it useful in the circumstances it was better to ignore it and use his constitutional authority (which he presumes overrides the statute) to seek these taps.

And he wonders why the Patriot act wasn't reauthorized. (which, by the way, is another story--why did hte times sit on this story for a year, publishing it on teh day the patriot act was up for a vote?)

Punishing the Guilty
 

Boy, they had to run it, because if they didn't, that Drudge fellow was going to scoop them. And we all know Drudge would have been releasing it solely to defeat the Patriot Act and embarass the Republicans.

Punishing the Guilty
 

The only thing I could think of is that maybe the NSA launched a sophisticated data mining surveillance system, and ALL conversations and e-mails are under some sort of low-level monitoring. The system picks out conversations with certain key words or phrases, and then someone analyzes the conversation to see if it's something the NSA may be interested in following up on. Wasn't Total Information Awareness, run by John Poindexter, a similar system?

Maybe the NSA picked up that ball when Congress decided that the Pentagon shouldn't be playing with such things without much more supervision.

But even if a system like that was in place, the 72 hour retroactive rule would still work, I think. Though maybe the NSA was concerned that judges wouldn't approve warrants on the basis of phrases alone without further probable cause.

Punishing the Guilty
 

Nope. The issues are completrely unrelated. (Except perhaps to the extent that you might argue in a 4th A case that the reversal changed a person's "reasonable expectation of privacy" -- but that doesn't hold much weight.)


Statutes -- especially nice clear ones like FISA -- are much easier and quicker to interpret and enforce that the Constitution. They also have penalties for violations. You don't get sent back for remedial classes for violations of the Constitution.

S_A_M-

Ummmm. i didn't write it, I quoted it.

note to Fringey: you should mention in GGG's file (unless you closed it- optomist!) that while he lives in Boston, he apparently didn't go to school there.

I know there's more than one school there- but there's not.

Hank Chinaski
'88 '91 Law

I saw an article on the study on Monday. I suspect Ty was familiar with the study before you posted it.

Punishing the Guilty
 

This article (linked on the liberal Drudge Report) suggests that the reporter had a book coming out talking about the wiretaps. If they didn't run the story, they'd be scooped by their own reporter.

http://www.observer.com/pageone_offtherec.asp

Yeah, I guess you're right. Once he's a lame duck, then why should he bother obeying the law?

You ought to consider actually reading this stuff before you post it.

Punishing the Guilty
 

There is another, minor, gloss on the Constitutional aspect of this. Bush took an oath of office wherein he swore to obey and uphold the laws of the United States. He violated that oath. He did so knowingly, apparently with full intent to do so, and he now shows no indication that he even acknowledges the possibility that his conduct was wrong.

Bush Lied!
 

Liar liar liar.

• Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0040420-2.html

The War on Christmas
 

Hitchens's take:

• But there are millions of well-appointed buildings all across the United States, most of them tax-exempt and some of them receiving state subventions, where anyone can go at any time and celebrate miraculous births and pregnant virgins all day and all night if they so desire. These places are known as "churches," and they can also force passersby to look at the displays and billboards they erect and to give ear to the bells that they ring. In addition, they can count on numberless radio and TV stations to beam their stuff all through the ether. If this is not sufficient, then god damn them. God damn them everyone.

http://www.slate.com/id/2132806/

Punishing the Guilty
 

My God, man, you are not actually suggesting that this is as bad as lying about sex, are you?

Punishing the Guilty
 

On the scale of things how does this stack up to stealing the election in 2000, disenfranchising millions of black voters in 2004, lying us into a war to protect his dad and wrecking the economy to get tax breaks for his rich friends? It just seems minor in comparision.