Comments on: The FISA Rubber Stamp

By: jpe

jpe — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 00:30:52 +0000

It is simply easier for them to live in their alternate universe.

Be that as it may, I think it says something that this particular issue has been discussed extensively over several years, and some people still don’t understand even the basic contours of the arguments.

By: imdw

imdw — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 00:23:35 +0000

“You must always remember that FISA was a law passedby the Jimmy Carter administration to restrict surveillance. ”

It was passed by congress in response to executive branch abuses, and the fear that courts would step with an even stronger hand, and carter wasn’t too happy with it.

By: JD

JD — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 00:02:34 +0000

SPQR – It is simply easier for them to live in their alternate universe.

By: SPQR

SPQR — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 23:59:43 +0000

jpe, and your theme is simply always been false.

By: JD

JD — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 23:55:59 +0000

Fascists

By: MIke K

MIke K — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 17:37:37 +0000

You must always remember that FISA was a law passedby the Jimmy Carter administration to restrict surveillance. It was a reaction to Nixon and “The Plumbers.” It was never intended to aid national security. My daughter spent a few years writing the FISA applications for the FBI and it is an onerous process that is impossible to use in the cell phone era. It’s about “wiretaps” in an era when nobody uses landlines. Especially terrorists. Maybe the Mafia still uses the old telephone but the people we are at war with use cellphones, many of them the disposable type. This is all about a war with Bush and will disappear once Obama is inaugurated. After January 20, 2009, you will not hear about FISA again from an MSM source.

By: cboldt

cboldt — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 16:26:26 +0000

As for the specifics (vitally important to reaching any sort of informed opinion), NYPD submitted warrant requests on public telephones. The NYPD wanted authority to obtain all communications in which one end was on certain public telephones.
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For those who don’t follow, or follow and forget, “probable cause” under FISA is not as to commission of a criminal act, but to the question that the information sought is either of a foreign agent, or relates to foreign intelligence information. Just a caution that “probable cause” has more than one meaning, although casual debate inclines (and sometimes intends, with the purpose of misleading) to find only the “suspicion of criminal activity” meaning.

By: jpe

jpe — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 16:13:33 +0000

it’s ironic that after years of hearing the Bush Administration created a “rubber stamp” FISA system that violated civil rights.

You fundamentally misunderstand the criticism. The criticism isn’t at all that Bush created a pliant FISA system. It’s that the FISC has always been deferential, so there has never been the need for Bush to break the law and go outside its parameters.

By: Another Drew

Another Drew — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 15:55:30 +0000

The New York Times…

Never letting the facts get in the way of an agenda!

By: Nugai

Nugai — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 15:52:25 +0000

The NYT will call his policies only “unduly rigorous” if there is a terrorist attack (or a narrowly averted one) in the first 1460 days of Obama’s first term.