Quote:
Originally posted by Spanky
The issue seems pretty simple to me.
1) The NSA can tap all the calls they want outside of the United States.
2) The NSA can tap any calls that originate outside of the United States or end outside the United States. If you, or your packages have no rights when entering or exiting the United States, why should your communication? If people are getting upset about eavesdropping on such calls they are making mountain out of molehills.
3) If the NSA is tapping phone calls the orginate and end in the United States (and there are no exigent circumstances - mainly they don't have time to get a warrant - but that shouldn't prevent them from getting a warrant if the tap continues) then the NSA and the Bush Administration are out of line. As far as I am aware, there is no national security exception to the Bill of Rights. If the New York times new of such violations and took a year to report it, that is a little scary. If this is what is happening the New York Times should have exposed it and the administration needs to be stopped. There is no excuse for domestic phone taps without warrants.
Is it more complicated than that?
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Not really, except I'm not sure you're completely right on #2--Ithink they can tap it, but not record/transcribe the U.S. caller's part of the conversation. And on 3, the argument is that there is a national security exception that makes the taps reasonable in a post-9/11 world. Not saying they're right, just that the argument may be more nuanced than there's no exception to the bill of rights--obviously there are limits when there is a clear and present danger, or an imminent threat, and so forth.
