Jan 15 2009
Finally! Top Federal Court Vindicates Bush On FISA-NSA
Final Comment: A lot of delusional liberals keep trying to claim this ruling means little. It is quite hilarious to watch a lot of people with law degrees miss the major points of the case. They seem to think if they ignore the main thrust on focus on irrelevant details there is an argument to keep this conspiracy theory alive.
First off, this is not a ruling in isolation, it is part of a series of rulings regarding the President’s rights to engage in intelligence gathering on people overseas without a warrant. By re-establishing this Presidential power it means anyone swept up in these actions is as much fair game as any non-warranted person who is caught on a warranted wire tap. This is the difference between a TARGET of the investigation and the CONTACTS that communicates with the TARGET, and who have their communications with the TARGET snooped on by the Feds. The only difference is whether a warrant is required, not that CONTACTS don’t get caught on wire taps.
Additionally, while the authority under which these intelligence actions took place have changed from executive orders to temporary legislation to permanent legislation – the actions have not changed. The Feds are still using communications between Americans and known terrorists to ensure the safety of this nation. Over the years the process and paperwork has of course been tweaked. And once leaked to the public, the restriction on only the Chief FIS Court judge knowing which cases were the result of NSA intercepts verses FBI warrants was clearly not needed anymore. But the basic act of using the information intercepted to investigate threats inside our borders – the changes Bush directed – has not changed under any of the various legal authorities set in place.
Even further, the legislation making these acts legal as executed under the executive order, was the legislature’s signature that this was allowed. They removed debate by codifying the executive orders – they did not once overturn them. And with a series of judicial stamps of approval there is a common federal voice across the three branches on this matter. This is a mountain of precedence and law and decisions. How blind by denial must one be to miss this?
So no matter what legal instrument was used, the acts are now deemed legal. If legal under the temporary legislation it is legal under the permanent laws. And since the decision re-affirms the right to do foreign intelligence gathering without a court warrant (as do both sets of laws), the actions under executive order are also legal. It is not the laws that count, it is the fact the laws all assume, and the decision confirms, the President doesn’t require a warrant to gather intel on foreign threats, even if people in America and US citizens get swept up in it.Â
The threat of attack, as agreed to by people other than the President, gives the executive branch the power to retain the information they capture and pass it to the FBI. And that is the big change since 9-11: we don’t throw known leads away and not tell the FBI whom and where to look for threats. Only an idiot with a law degree could rationalize going back to that model of protecting the people of the United States from foreign attack.
It is nice to know a lowly space engineer with a biology degree is still sharper than a bunch of over payed liberal lawyers. Wouldn’t be the first time.
Major Update: For all the liberals in denial out there the WSJ has a great round up of the mountain of rulings that preceded this landmark vindication. Denial is not an excuse anymore. – end update
 
The NY Times allowed a liberal, disgruntled DoJ employee to expose one of our nation’s most valuable defensive programs against terrorist attack based on the man’s ignorance of the facts. I recently wrote about the traitor Thomas Tamm – who should be indicted and thrown in jail for pretending (a) to be more powerful than our laws or the commander-in-chief and (b) for exposing national security secrets based on fantasies in his head that bore no resemblance to the truth of the matter. He is a modern day Benedict Arnold.
And the NY Times should be punished for running this false crap as fact. Tamm had no clue what the program was about, and no idea that the FIS Court Chief Judge was supporting the new processes put in place after 9-11. Processes that are critical to saving American lives. Processes which replaced dangerously muddled thinking from the late 1970’s, where some in our government knew that someone in the US was in contact with known terrorists out to kill us, but they were not allowed to tell the FBI so they could go investigate and see how bad or real the danger was! No, couldn’t have that.
Well now the top intelligence court of the land has come out with an opinion vindicating Bush and settling once and for all how insane the lunatic left is when it comes to national security.
A federal intelligence court, in a rare public opinion, issued a major ruling validating the power of the president and Congress to wiretap international phone calls and intercept e-mail messages without a specific court order, even when Americans’ private communications may be involved.
…
The Aug. 22 appeals court decision upheld a secret ruling issued last year by the intelligence court that it oversees, known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance, or FISA, court. In that initial opinion, the secret court found that Congress had acted within its authority in August 2007 when it passed a hotly debated law known as the Protect America Act, which gave the executive branch broad power to eavesdrop on international communications.
“The Department of Justice is pleased with this important ruling by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, which upholds the constitutionality of foreign intelligence surveillance conducted under the Protect America Act of 2007,†a Justice Department statement said.
The FIS Court of Review is the top court in the land on such matters. Think of it as the Appellate/Supreme Court on national security matters. There is no higher authority in the federal court system.Â
All those moans and groans about the 4th Amendment and Bush spying on Americans was a bunch fantasy fiction. And now the court has made it unanimous, all three branches of government have supported the changes. Maybe now the NY Times and all those nuts on the left can finally eat their crow – they have a lot of it to shovel down.
I have followed this story from the day it broke (you can find my numerous posts on the matter here) and was one of the first one to realize the NY Times lied. It lied about Bush bypassing the court (the FIS Court judge who also exposed national secrets on this matter was mad that the NSA leads were being heard at the court, not that they were going around the court). It lied about the essence of the program. It lied about the entire matter – an won journalism awards for their garbage.
They lied and risked the lives of all Americans by tipping of our enemies about how we were detecting their forces as they tried to get into the country and to their targets. These people filled their heads with righteous fantasies of themselves as heros and could have easily killed thousands of people if the news had broken at the wrong time.
Bush leaves office vindicated, and the Mad-Hatter left has destroyed what little credibility they have left. They are lucky that is all their insane actions resulted in.
Update: Here is the opinion itself.
Snapple,
I admit it, I’m a poor speller and write my comments so fast that I don’t take the time to check spelling and grammer. When I do something for a client, I write more carefully, use my spell check, proof read it before I send out and have my secretary proof read it just in case. The difference – in one instance I’m getting paid a lot of money to do it and I care what the receipient thinks about me, in the other instance I’m not getting paid and could care less if you think I’m a bad speller.
Really, is that the best counter-argument you got? Make fun of my typos, spelling or grammer? Good thing you don’t make your living as a lawyer.
It is just amazing to watch the left twist themselves into pretzels to try and avoid the reality here. Bush has been vindicated and Obama will use the same program.
Right after 9/11, Nancy Pelosi and Congressional Democrats were briefed about enhanced interrogation and they said Do it. They were concerned about another 9/11. However, once time passed their partisan hatred outpaced their concerns and since there had not been any more attacks here…they decided to change their minds and scream about war crimes.
Never mind the fact that Clinton had sent people to places like Jordan for interrogation. As long as they did not have to see it, they did not have a problem with it. Bush should have been sneakier, the Democrats might have liked him better.
Its about time. Sorry to see the guy go. Can Obama take up the slack—got serious doubts.
Chalk one up for Bush.
Redteam:
“Though the decision applies only to the stopgap FISA measure in place between 2007 and 2008”
You quoted that exact phrase yourself. How did you miss it?
Okay, seriously – can any of you *READ*? I simply cannot believe that you can QUOTE THESE EXACT WORDS, and then state two lines later that this applies to more than just the PAA.
It would be infuriating, if it wasn’t so comical. Your ability to self-delude is astounding.
Plus, the fact that you are all sudden legal experts is especially hilarious. You’re all convinced that the warrantless wiretapping done by Bush from 2001-2006 is “vindicated” by this decision.
But, this lawyer disagrees with you.
As does this one.
And this one.
But hey – no problem, who ever said a lawyer would know anything about the law, eh?
It’s not complicated, folks. This is from the original NY Times article:
“The opinion is not expected to directly rule on the legality of the once-secret operation authorized by President Bush between October 2001 and early 2007, which allowed the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on the international communications of Americans suspected of ties to terrorists.”
“Not expected”. Got it? “*NOT* expected.”
That seems pretty clear, right? But no, please – go right ahead and insist that *I* am the one confused here.
GuyF
You’ve obviously never worked for a lawyer. My wife was a paralegal, and never stopped complaining about how the lawyers she worked with could get paid in the high 6 figures, but couldn’t spell or use proper grammer to save their lives.
# conmanon 16 Jan 2009 at 8:13 pm
Snapple,
I admit it, I’m a poor speller and write my comments so fast that I don’t take the time to check spelling and grammer, in one instance I’m getting paid a lot of money to do it and I care
Okay, so here we have it, conguy admitting he could care less about accuracy in what he says, uh, unless he’s getting paid, and GuyF stating that lawyers are notorious for not caring what they say or how they say it, just for what they get paid.
so who the hell is paying you for what you write here that’s you’re suddenly ‘accurate’ in what you’re saying.
It takes little effort to refute what either of you bozos said and it matters not how carefully we refute each point, you don’t hear it and don’t care anyhow because you ‘know you’re accurate when working for a client’. What a clown.
Just a couple quotes from the WSJ story pertaining to the ruling and making it clear that tho this court case was about affirming the particular ruling you clowns didn’t like in the first place, it also:
In a major August 2008 decision released yesterday in redacted form, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, the FISA appellate panel, affirmed the government’s Constitutional authority to collect national-security intelligence without judicial approval. The case was not made public before yesterday, and its details remain classified. An unnamed telecom company refused to comply with the National Security Agency’s monitoring requests and claimed the program violated the Fourth Amendment’s restrictions on search and seizure.
See those little words in there: affirmed the governments Constitutional authority to collect…… get it.. affirmed something else there did it? You don’t really think they’re saying the government only has constitutional authority in the 2007 deal, do you?
and then here:
But the Constitution bans only “unreasonable” search and seizure, not all searches and seizures, and the Fourth Amendment allows for exceptions such as those under a President’s Article II war powers. The courts have been explicit on this point. In 1980, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals held in Truong that “the Executive need not always obtain a warrant for foreign intelligence surveillance.” The FISA appeals court said in its 2002 opinion In re Sealed Case that the President has “inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information” and took “for granted” that “FISA could not encroach on the President’s constitutional power.”
see where it affirms that ‘all searches and seizures’ are not banned and that little bit about , in 1980..”the Executive need not always obtain a warrant….. and that little ditty there… in2002 opinion…’the President has “inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches…… and affirmed that….took “for granted that” Fisa could not encroach on the Pres…… (something you(guyF and conguy don’t seem to understand at all)
So you see Conguy and GuyF (should we call you 2guys?) it is rather clear that this opinion was about much much more than Just the 2007 deal.
These little parts are so evident, I figured I didn’t even need to point them out when I stated you were so completely wrong, but since you obviously needed help finding these little points, I’ve obliged.
GuyF
okay you linked to 3 lawyers and said they disagree with me
the first one: Lichtblau’ wrote before the ruling was issued and stated what ‘he expected’ to be said.
the second link was to exactly the same article by lichblau in a different pub and said exactly the same thing. ‘what he expected the ruling to say’
and you’re gonna be surprised by this, the 3rd link was to a Salon article by Glenn Greenwald telling us what lichblau had said about what he expected the ruling to be about.
So all three of your lawyers were the same lawyer and he was only telling us what he ‘expected’ the ruling to say. He hadn’t read it yet.
also a quote from you:It’s not complicated, folks. This is from the original NY Times article:
“The opinion is not expected to directly rule on the legality of the once-secret operation authorized by President
again, what it is ‘expected’ to say. Can’t any lib actually wait til someone says something to tell us what he said?
incidentally the Salon link actually linked to a porn site that you had to go thru to get to the Greenwald story, Does that tell you something?
GuyF, you’re so full of sh*t you’re gonna explode if you don’t get to the outhouse quick.
From MacMind.
“WASHINGTON – President-elect Barack Obama is preparing to prohibit the use of waterboarding and harsh interrogation techniques by ordering the CIA to follow military rules for questioning prisoners, according to two U.S. officials familiar with drafts of the plans.
The proposal Obama is considering would require all CIA interrogators to follow conduct outlined in the U.S. Army Field Manual, the officials said. The plans would also have the effect of shutting down secret “black site†prisons around the world where the CIA has questioned terror suspects — with all future interrogations taking place inside American military facilities.â€
Yeah, but…
“However, Obama’s changes may not be absolute. His advisers are considering adding a classified loophole to the rules that could allow the CIA to use some interrogation methods not specifically authorized by the Pentagon, the officials said.â€
I thought Obama said he was gonna follow the Army manual. what? is he free to change his mind? or what……..
Redteam:
Your first comment:
“Can’t any lib actually wait til someone says something to tell us what he said?”
Your second comment:
“However, Obama’s changes may not be absolute. His advisers are considering adding a classified loophole to the rules ”
Heh. So first, you insist that we need to absolutely hear from the words from someone’s mouth before we make a decision.
Then, you bash Obama because of something that allegedly his “advisers” are “considering”.
The sad part is – you won’t even get why those two are in contradiction with each other.
So – which is it? Can we not declare a decision until we hear the words out of a person’s mouth? Or is it okay to make assumptions about a person without hearing a single word from them? (Or is that decision only affected by whether someone is a Republican or Democrat?)
Sounds like a bunch of attorneys on a street conner agruing over who will go out and see the guy lying in the middle of the street first all attorneys and would be attorneys do is “complicate the obvious and trivialize the momentous.
You guy sound like street conner attorneys complicating the obvious and trivializing the momentous.
Russell,
Sorry man – I accidentally deleted your first comment. You’ve bin in ‘comment moderation’ hell. You should be free and clear to post now.
Cheers, AJStrata
Both GuyF and Conman incorrectly spell the word grammar as “grammer” and have strange opinions about lawyers.
My husband is a Washington lawyer. He graduated from Harvard. He can spell, and he personally proofs the briefs of young attorneys. Young associates don’t last long if they can’t master grammar.
Proofing a brief is not left up to secretaries.
People who are so obviously careless/ignorant aren’t qualified to speak as legal experts on complicated legal issues.
All lawyers can spell grammar because they spend a lot of time yelling at associates about their grammar.
GuyF can’t make his pronouns agree with his antecedents. A lawyer can make his pronouns agree with his antecedents even if he is writing quickly.
GuyF writes:
“…is it okay to make assumptions about a person without hearing a single word from them?”
Guy should have written “him” because the antecedent of the pronoun is the singular “person.”
A lawyer–even one who is writing quickly–simply doesn’t make this sort of error in his writing.
Conman also makes the identical errors in agreement.
He writes:
“Do you know how to tell when someone is clueless but they want [he wants] everyone else to think they are [he is] knowledgable?”
“Someone” is an indefinite pronoun. It is third person singular. This means it “someone is like the words “he” or “Bill.”
“Someone” is a “he,” not a “they.”
Lawyers don’t make agreement errors even if they are writing quickly. Assocates learn to correct this bad habit the first time they get yelled at for it, and they never do it again.
So confusing! Conman is supposedly the lawyer. GuyF is supposedly an authority on the law because he is a paralegal’s husband. I guess she told you the lawyers who employed her had poor writing skills, but she never succeeded in correcting your writing. That must have really gotten on her nerves.
Snapple:
Thank you for adding so much to the conversation. Four consecutive comments, and not one single point that actually related to the ongoing topic. Very impressive.
Please go look up the phrase “ad hominem”.
Part of the decision referenced “special circumstances” exception under FISA for warrantless surveillance and whether that applied in this case (which liberals have long argued didn’t exist…..ie., why Bush was guilty of warrantless/illegal searches). It also explicitly acknowledge the Presidents role in “authorizing” such surveillance (as well as the AG and the NSA) under the special circumstances clause of FISA. That was part of petitioners argument as well, that such warrantless surveillance was not legal, nor authorized in this case and that complying with such an order without warrant, and other requirements being met, would violate the 4th amendment and subject companies to liability. This liability was what gave them “standing” to bring this case for review on behalf of a 3rd party.
Can people be arrested and can the evidence be used to convict American collaborators, or is the information only used to watch what the bad guys are doing and deter it?
Since they are telling the rules now, maybe they are going to arrest some people.