Doesn't the president have more important things to do? He already told us he doesn't need Congressional approval on this one.

http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/local/states/california/13698129.htm

Quote :

"Bush may ask Congress to OK domestic spying By Stewart M. Powell HEARST NEWSPAPERS WASHINGTON - President Bush and the nation's No. 2 intelligence official on Monday defended "targeted" post-9/11 domestic spying without court approval, amid hints that the White House may ask Congress for a green light to continue the wiretaps. Bush said he had constitutional and congressional authority to order the National Security Agency to carry out secret surveillance on two-way international communications between individuals in the U.S., including American citizens, and suspected al-Qaida operatives overseas. Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, deputy director of national intelligence, said NSA eavesdropping was not "a drift net" ensnaring innocent international communications by ordinary Americans. But in a potential U-turn by the Bush administration, Hayden, White House senior counselor Dan Bartlett and White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan cracked the door for the first time to the White House asking Congress to revise the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to accommodate "hot pursuit" of fleeting communications by suspected members of al-Qaida -- the ones that are now being targeted by the NSA program without court approval. "If they're making a phone call in the United States, it seems like to me we want to know why," Bush told nearly 9,000 students, soldiers and dignitaries at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kan. Bush told his audience he was "mindful of your civil liberties," but emphasized he had broken no laws by ordering domestic spying without approval by the 11-judge Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. The court was established by FISA in 1978 to review and usually approve electronic eavesdropping on suspected foreign agents inside the United States. The court permits emergency wiretaps without court approval for up to 72 hours. "It's amazing when people to say to me, 'Well, he was just breaking the law,'" Bush said, emphasizing repeated briefings to selected members of Congress. "If I wanted to break the law, why was I briefing Congress?" Hayden, who led the NSA when the domestic spying began in October, 2001, told an audience at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., that the NSA "has neither the time, the resources nor the legal authority to read communications that aren't likely to protect us." With more than 200 billion minutes of international telephone calls to and from the United States in 2003, the NSA is "going after very specific communications that our professional judgment tells us we have reason to believe are those associated with people who want to kill Americans," Hayden said. Officials' first hints that the Bush administration might ask Congress to revise federal prohibitions on domestic surveillance without court approval emerged after Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., told Fox News Sunday that the White House should seek authorization from Congress. "I know of no member of Congress, frankly, who, if the administration came and said, 'Here's why we need this capability,' that they wouldn't get it," McCain said. Hayden spoke as though the administration were weighing changes. "If we were to do that, I would hope we would do it in such a way that the legitimate debate and legitimate discussions of that step do not betray to the enemy the tactics, techniques and procedures that we are now using to detect them," Hayden said. Bartlett told CBS' News "Early Show" that the White House had explored with congressional leaders the possibility of adjusting FISA at the outset of the program. "We're obviously going to continue to work with Congress," Bartlett said. "We have some hearings coming up (Feb. 6) in the (Senate) Judiciary Committee. We'll continue to work with them." McClellan also suggested the White House may ask Congress to provide legal cover for the NSA program, echoing language that resembled Bartlett. Members of Congress briefed on the presidentially-ordered surveillance initially felt that the White House should not seek formal approval by Congress, McClellan said. "We will always continue to work closely with Congress on these issues," McClellan told reporters aboard Air Force One en route with the president to his appearance at Kansas State University. Democrats continued criticism of the Bush-backed spying. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., said Bush had "yet to explain why the secret FISA courts are not good enough or fast enough -- or tell Congress what changes need to be made in the law." Kerry added: "It's time for a real investigation to get to the truth." The remarks by Bush and Hayden were the lead-off in a series of appearances by top administration officials on behalf of the controversial spying program. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales plans to address the issue today in a speech at Georgetown University titled "Intercepting al-Qaida: A Lawful and Necessary Tool for Protecting America." Bush plans a rare visit to NSA headquarters at nearby Fort Meade, Md., on Wednesday. The latest AP-Ipsos nationwide poll completed earlier this month showed that 56 percent of Americans believed the Bush administration should be required to get an electronic surveillance warrant from the federal court before eavesdropping on electronic communications between American citizens and suspected terrorists overseas. Hayden's presentation, at an hourlong speech and question-and-answer session at the National Press Club that drew a few heated hecklers, was remarkable in that it featured a former director of the supersecret National Security Agency discussing what administration officials say is probably the government's most classified program. Hayden, in his most extensive public remarks to date, said instantaneous surveillance permitted under Bush's order enables the NSA to track suspects' telephone calls "more comprehensively and more efficiently" than going through the FISA court. Had NSA spying been under way under presidential order before Sept. 11, 2001, Hayden said it was his "professional judgment that we would have detected some of the 9/11 al-Qaida operatives in the United States and we would have identified them as such." His claim was less sweeping that ones offered by Vice President Dick Cheney who has contended that the spying program might have prevented the attacks as well as saving "thousands of lives" since the Sept. 11 attacks. "The activities conducted under this authorization have helped us detect and prevent possible terrorist attacks against the American people," Cheney said in New York last Friday."

1/24/2006 6:26:54 PM

Quote :

"Gamecat: Doesn't the president have more important things to do?"

I know it's sarcasm on your part, but [agreed]

1/24/2006 6:36:05 PM

If he gets congress to make it legal, that would kind of imply that it was, before they stepped in, illegal.

Which would be kind of hilarious.

1/24/2006 6:56:25 PM

What does he need congress for? Peh, you people.

1/24/2006 7:03:12 PM

what does it matter? he has carte blanche to break the law anyway

[Edited on January 24, 2006 at 7:26 PM. Reason : .]

1/24/2006 7:26:14 PM

Exactly. If the Pesident does it, it's not illegal.

Quote :

"If he gets congress to make it legal, that would kind of imply that it was, before they stepped in, illegal. Which would be kind of hilarious."

That's exactly the point I was trying to make.

1/24/2006 8:05:48 PM

No it doesn't. It just re-confirms his authority to act. He doesn't NEED Congressional approval, but it would be a cool thing to have.

1/24/2006 9:04:05 PM

^ I'll take 2 of what he's drinking

1/24/2006 9:15:12 PM

^^he already tried to get it in 2001 and was denied. so then they just decided to do it anyway. this power was obviously not intended in the original bill to allow military force to fight the "war on terror". Bush and the NSA overstepped their bounds, no matter what their intentions were. if there is room for this power to be abused, one cannot just trust that the good ol' government promises to do us right.

this is why FISA exists. they are there to make sure there aren't any instances of abuse of this power and that the wiretaps are only used when absolutely necessary for the protection of the country.

the illegality of what bush might be a little murky to prove in court just because FISA was not written with computers, cell phones and the internet in mind. This does not mean that we should continue to allow this sort of lawlessness to continue.

Will Bush get impeached for this?
Not likely
Will any smart congressman support extending this sort of wiretapping power to the President?
I sure hope not.

[Edited on January 25, 2006 at 3:27 PM. Reason : TERRORISTS!!!111]

1/25/2006 3:26:21 PM

Quote :

"Wolfpack2K: He doesn't NEED Congressional approval, but it would be a cool thing to have."

Let me make sure I understand what you're saying here.

Are you saying the President wants to tie up Congress' and his own immensely valuable time doing something for the sheer "coolness" of it?

I think that even most Georgians would tell you that dog won't hunt. Surely you can come with some better rhetoric; you being a law student and all.

1/25/2006 7:10:49 PM

Not just cool, but wacky.

This is going to bite him in the ass. There's way too much inertia of distrust to let this kind of shit slide.

1/25/2006 9:00:49 PM

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/25/AR2006012502270_pf.html

Quote :

"White House Dismissed '02 Surveillance Proposal The Bush administration rejected a 2002 Senate proposal that would have made it easier for FBI agents to obtain surveillance warrants in terrorism cases, concluding that the system was working well and that it would likely be unconstitutional to lower the legal standard. The proposed legislation by Sen. Mike DeWine (R-Ohio) would have allowed the FBI to obtain surveillance warrants for non-U.S. citizens if they had a "reasonable suspicion" they were connected to terrorism -- a lower standard than the "probable cause" requirement in the statute that governs the warrants. The administration has contended that it launched a secret program of warrantless domestic eavesdropping by the National Security Agency in part because of the time it takes to obtain such secret warrants from federal judges under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The wiretapping program, ordered by President Bush in 2001, is used when intelligence agents have a "reasonable basis to believe" that a target is tied to al Qaeda or related groups, according to recent statements by administration officials. It can be used on U.S. citizens as well as foreign nationals, without court oversight. Democrats and national security law experts who oppose the NSA program say the Justice Department's opposition to the DeWine legislation seriously undermines arguments by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and others, who have said the NSA spying is constitutional and that surveillance warrants are often too cumbersome to obtain. "It's entirely inconsistent with their current position," said Philip B. Heymann, a deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration who teaches law at Harvard University. "The only reason to do what they've been doing is because they wanted a lower standard than 'probable cause.' A member of Congress offered that to them, but they turned it down." But Justice Department officials disagreed, saying the standard the department opposed in 2002 is legally different from the one used by the NSA. "The FISA 'probable cause' standard is essentially the same as the 'reasonable basis' standard used in the terrorist surveillance program," said spokeswoman Tasia Scolinos, using the term for the NSA program the White House has adopted. "The 'reasonable suspicion' standard, which is lower than both of these, is not used in either program." Justice officials also said that even under a different standard, the process of obtaining a surveillance warrant would take longer than is necessary for the NSA to efficiently track suspected terrorists. The DeWine amendment -- first highlighted this week by Internet blogger Glenn Greenwald and widely publicized yesterday by the Project on Government Secrecy, an arm of the Federation of American Scientists -- is the latest point of contention in a fierce political and legal battle over the NSA monitoring program. Many Democrats and some Republicans, along with legal experts from both sides, have criticized the program as a clear violation of the 1978 FISA law, which makes it a crime to conduct domestic surveillance without a criminal or intelligence warrant. The administration argues that Bush acted legally under the congressional authorization to use military force against al Qaeda, and that FISA would be unconstitutional if it constrains his power as commander in chief. During separate appearances this week, Gonzales and Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the deputy intelligence chief, also said the legal requirements under FISA made it difficult for intelligence agents to act quickly enough in many cases. Under the NSA program, Hayden said, "the trigger is quicker and a bit softer than it is for a FISA warrant." During Senate debate over DeWine's amendment in July 2002, James A. Baker, the Justice Department's counsel for intelligence policy, said in a statement that the Bush administration did not support the proposal "because the proposed change raises both significant legal and practical issues." Baker said it was "not clear cut" whether the proposal would "pass constitutional muster," and "we could potentially put at risk ongoing investigations and prosecutions" if the amendment was later struck down by the courts. He also said Justice had been using FISA aggressively and played down the notion that the probable cause standard was too high. A DeWine spokesman declined to comment on the issue yesterday. Also yesterday, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) sent a list of 15 sharply worded questions to Gonzales in preparation for a Feb. 6 hearing on the legality of the NSA program. Specter asks, among other things, why the government did not ask Congress for new legislation to allow the spying."

I love a good semantic debate.

1/26/2006 5:49:44 AM

i am convinced that stories like this are hyped just so assholes can have political debates at wine bars and in the soapbox on the wolf web. cause like you said, it doesnt matter. and of course he has better things to do. but youre talking about it on the wolf web. dont you have better things to do?

1/26/2006 5:54:36 AM

i wish i could say that i do, but i'm waiting for a good job offer at this point

that, and a nice release of melatonin from the grey matter any ol'time now

[Edited on January 26, 2006 at 6:11 AM. Reason : ...]

1/26/2006 6:03:20 AM

you have to hunt for the job, they're not gonna come to you. ha ha.

THESE DAMN JOBS ARE PRACTICALLY KNOCKIN MY DOOR DOWN

1/26/2006 6:05:42 AM

my outbox says i'm hunting, leg

1/26/2006 6:11:58 AM

hahahaha well good luck to ya. i decided to make my yearly trip to soapbox and post my opinions. hopefully my opinions will bore me to sleep.

[Edited on January 26, 2006 at 6:14 AM. Reason : extra word ans spelling. wowwwwwwwww]

1/26/2006 6:13:49 AM