I'm as much in favor of civil liberties as anyone, but there's room here for debate. Suppose the CIA is tapping the phones of two known foreign terrorists in a foreign country. This is completely legal and I doubt anyone would see a problem with this...until one day one of them picks up the phone and calls someone in the US. Suddenly, the tap is illegal. Should the CIA have to run to the FISA Court and get a warrant, especially if there's no reason to expect that call will be made again?

I'm not arguing the gates should be thrown wide open - only that there needs to be a reasonable way of dealing with truly incidental communication intercepts. Of course, my argument isn't made any easier by Bush's tendency to scoop up everything in sight and call it "incidental".

So many civil liberties violations, so little time!

$100 says Bush ends up with just about all he wants at some point this weekend or right before Thanksgiving recess...slightly less money for a new holiday threat to pop up in the news...

"Should the CIA have to run to the FISA Court and get a warrant, especially if there's no reason to expect that call will be made again?"

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't FISA always allow investigators to get a warrant after a 3 day grace period?

Apparently, Bush doesn't need oversight, because it's not like he going to illegal wiretap anyone.

If Bush violates his oath of office, no problem, the Dems help him with and take impeachment of table.

I'll say it again. Bush was illegally wiretapping without telling anyone, because why, because why, did Bush honestly feel congress nor the FISA really wanted to protect the US from terrorism?

Bush should be impeached for what he did. This is the best reason to vote for Ron Paul, nut case or not, at least he won't, with intent to do so, violate the US Constitution.

Dems will not take a stand, will not do the right thing, by the end of this day - Bush will get immunity for telecom companies and everyone knows it.

Congress no longer gives a damn about the American people, and what we want, at least not longer then to spin a lies about what the will do, but never do it.

As murka pointed out there is no reason ever to "drop everything" and get a warrant. To suggest so is irresponsible. Please do not use the typical GOP rhetorical ploy of the excluded middle; either we allow the CIA and NSA to wiretap without warrants or they must "drop everything" to get a warrant. Those are the only two options? It doesn't wash.

The FISA law bends over backwards to make it trivially easy for the Administration to wiretap now and get the warrant later. There's no need to have to pick one extreme or the other.

U

The amendments to FISA made by the "Police America Act of 2007" expire on Feb. 1st.

The House should postpone action until they get a bill that passes muster:

NO spying on US citizens without a warrant.
NO amnesty for email-thieving criminal corporations.

Apparently some defenders of the non-warrant still do not understand the degree to which THEIR CIVIL LIBERTIES have been already affected and will be FURTHER affected.

To understand EXACTLY WHY the Bush administration (and the corporations) are so much in favor of warrantless spying, one needs to recall just how out of touch the government was with the American people during the Vietnam protests (keeping in mind that many who supported the protesters didn't protest themselves).

These protests and protests scared the hell out of our government and our corporations, and THAT is why they so want to spy on Americans without warrants. (Hey, they did it to Martin Luther King and MANY others).

This corporate controlled government simply CANNOT be trusted with the civil liberties of the American people.

This warrantless spying has as much to do with spying on the American people as it does with spying on supposedly terrorists.

You don't have to be a blind conservative not to see it, just an ignorant one to deny it.

An Attorney General appointed by a Democratic president in 2009 will be able to prosecute then ex-president Bush for violations of The Constitution of the United States. That is unless the afore mentioned Bush finds a way to pardon himself.

Impeachment will then be "off of the table"! Maybe then the speaker of the house, who ever it will be, will have the courage to act forcefully.

Pelosi has been a big disappointment. That is the best that I can say about her!

"He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good." (SCHIP)
"He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers." (FISA Court)

BTW, there was a 3 day retroactive period on FISA warrants. Some proposed a 7 day period for the new law, but the President refused. What's he hiding?? Grow a spine, Dems!

*quotes from Declaration of Independence

I'm as much in favor of civil liberties as anyone, but there's room here for debate. Suppose the CIA is tapping the phones of two known foreign terrorists in a foreign country. This is completely legal and I doubt anyone would see a problem with this...until one day one of them picks up the phone and calls someone in the US. Suddenly, the tap is illegal. Should the CIA have to run to the FISA Court and get a warrant, especially if there's no reason to expect that call will be made again?

First off, the wiretap does not become illegal because there is a single call made to the US.

Secondly, if we have identified someone as a terrorist in a foreign country, it makes no sense at all not to get a warrant, because if a call is ever made to the US it makes it much easier to prosecute the person in the USA.

What you seem to be missing here is that the US is authorized to listen into all "foreign to foreign" communication, regardless of whether we have identified the person as a terrorist. Only by requiring warrants for surveillance of domestic calls can we make sure that the power to listen into the phone calls of ALL FOREIGNERS will not be abused.

to Anonymous in the first post - this is a false argument. if enough was known of two "foreign terrorists" to correctly identify them as such, it would be no problem what so ever to get a warrant from the FISA Courts (which had to date, never refused a request) either beforehand or retroactively a day or two after the tap. no problem. so then the question is "are the FISA courts necessary if they've never said 'no' to a request?" and the answer is 'yes', because there needs to be an area in which activity such as wiretapping is answerable to the branch of our government interprets the law, for just such occasions as rogue presidents presiding over criminal regimes "scooping up" BS information and using it to justify far greater wrongs against the country than merely monitoring foreign to domestic conversations without a warrant. which has certainly been going on and is certainly wrong. but all of this discussion fails to even basically address the purely domestic monitoring, the data mining on a massive scale. its crazy that the conversation ends before these subjects are even touched upon. there need to be safeguards everywhere within the structure of our government to prevent exactly what has been going on recently; namely the subjugation of the Interpretive branch by the Executive branche of government, turning one into a tool of, rather than a check on, the other.

This version is clearly unconstitutional.

Any Senator that votes for it should be impeached.

Just look at the international news in the past few days to see destructive effects Bush and his Admin's flouting of the law--all law--has had:

Bhutto, no doubt pissed at being trapped in her house by the military and for being dumb enough to believe Musharref's promises, insists that Musharref must both resign as President of Pakistan and as the head of the military. Musharref then tells the world that the nukes in his country are safe, as long he remains head of the military. And about those elections scheduled for January 2008? Well, they're likely to cause unrest in Pakistan, and in that case he couldn't guarantee the safety of the nukes.

Russia's upcoming elections are worrying the EU, which wants to make sure that the elections are run without shenanigans. Funny thing, though--the EU's monitors can't get visas to go to Russia to monitor the elections.

What do these incidents have in common? The US's most valued ally in the war on terror (Musharref) and the man with the visible soul (Putin)--Bush's pet world leaders--aren't even pretending to follow any laws but their own. Gee, where did they get the idea that this would go over well in the US?

It doesn't go over well, but since Bush's own countrymen and women haven't been able to call Bush and Co. to account for their actions, why should anyone else in the world worry that Americans will disapprove of THEIR actions.

And on the domestic front we've got the boyish but stony-faced FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, who holds the obligatory public hearings on media ownership and then ignores what the public insists should happen: Keep the media in more hands, especially more local hands. But why should Martin care what the public wants? It's not as if he's in a job that has a responsibility to the American public or anything.

Just like Bush, and Cheney, and Gonzales, and Rumsfeld, and Rice, and on and on think we're all just silly little people to whom they have no responsibility once they're in power.

It's a contagious disease that Bush has spread, but the problem is that he and the others spreading it aren't the ones who are suffering from its effects.

This misstates current law, and relies on sophistry. This argument changes the subject from whether the law or isn't adequate -- it is -- to the illusory requirement to violate the law, ignore the law, or pretend teh law isn't adequate.

[ Anonymous wrote on November 16, 2007 4:05 PM: ] "Should the CIA have to run to the FISA Court and get a warrant, especially if there's no reason to expect that call will be made again?"

1. CIA Doesn't have to Run

2. Retroactive Warrants Allowed

You fail to consider the current provisions which permit -- under the FISA statute -- retroctive warrants. The proposed bill would take the FISA Court out of the review.

The error with the "improved" bill is the still refusal to admit that the current legal allowances -- which permit retoactive ewarrants -- would still work under your scenario; but the President and this Congress reufse to enforce that provision.

It makes no sense to change a law on the false problem of "there is no time" when FISA recognizes that retoractive warrants are allowed. The proposed bill incorrect assumes retoractive warrants aren't a possibility.

Onceler, Anonymous,
Actually, the FISA court -- an entirely secret court, mind you -- had never refused a request for a warrant UNTIL the Bush Administration. Then they chose to refuse several requests. That is when the administration began making an end run around the FISA court to do whatever they wanted to do. And amazingly enough, few people in Washington seem interested in stopping them from engaging in such purely illegal acts.
It is a disgrace, and it is the reason that this nation must, from here on out, begin to vote out all incumbent members of Congress who have supported this idea. Because it is has become crystal clear that this group of people (from both sides of the political aisle) can no longer be trusted to uphold our Constitution.

Total information Awareness Act

There are 2 versions of Bill Number S.2248 for the 110th Congress
1 . FISA Amendments Act of 2007 (Placed on Calendar in Senate)[S.2248.PCS]
2 . FISA Amendments Act of 2007 (Referred to Senate Committee with Instructions)[S.2248.RIS]
Could you guys see whats to this . '
Survillance of all domestic e-mails
regular mail and more .