michaeledward said:
You 'prefer' the fourth Amendment be followed. Well, isn't that special.
Why yes, it is. I'm not an enforcement agent, and I'd assume you are not either. I'd prefer people not to be killed. I'd prefer them to get arrested if they do kill. I'd prefer the constitution to be followed. If not, I'd prefer they be called on it. HOWEVER, cases like what happened in the civil war brought up circumstances in which certain aspects became secondary to national security. This has happened before, with one of the lefts favorite presidents.
So, whats your point? Unless you are an enforcement agent, you don't enforce laws.
Dire Circumstances were discussed and built into the FISA law. The government could instigate a wire-tap, and petition the court up to 24 hours after survaillance has begun.
The Patriot Act extended that time window to 72 hours to petition the FISA court for a warrant.
The best reason put forth for not seeking such a warrant is that 'probable cause' standard could not be met. A low standard indeed for a court that has declined on a handful of requests in more than two decades. A handful of petitions out of more than nineteen thousand.
It was my impression that the constitution applied to Citizens. Most of those being targeted are not citizens from my understanding. Thats one of my problems with the McCain bill recently passed, extending rights to enemy combatants.
Now, to the specifics. Is Bush taking extra liberties with wire taps? Perhaps. As stated before, its not unprecedented (well, overstepping constitution, not wire taps to my knowledge, don't think Lincoln had alot of phones in his day). We are at a time of war.
The odd thing is that if we had surveillence on the agents that brought about 9/11, would you have complained about wire taps that kept them from murdering? How many 9/11's have we prevented or at least postponed? If it were to happen again, would the dems jump on our intellegence gathering business again? you bet! You would say wonderful things like "Bush is not doing enough to protect us", "our intellegence gathering is flawed", "the patriot act is not working", ect.. How many 9/11's must happen before we start allowing intellegence gathering to do its job? Do I suggest unlimited wiretaps on the entirety of the US? No, and as I stated before, thats not practical.
So, what is your alternative. Do you suggest we stop searching for terror suspects and allow them free communication? Does the infrastructure even exist to supports thousands of wiretaps and the judges to sign and investigate such wiretaps? How many more judges are needed to answer the requests for more wiretaps? *cough cough* filibuster *cough cough*
I'd also like to know exactly how they determine who they surveil. Lets get that information and see if its all that unreasonable. Are they wasting time listening to me discuss grocery lists with my wife? Or are they listening to immigrants from Syria with suspected terror links? Who exactly is having their rights impinged? (Yes, if citizens they have rights *points to lincoln*)
Is it even illegal to listen in on illegal immigrants? (I'm asking because I honestly don't know)
I also seem to recall some intellgence gathering going on in Afghanistan. They were able to trace cell calls and used that to track the location of Al Qaeda agents in the area. are you frowning on that too? Irrelevent since its over there?
It seems that even the second amendment isn't doing its job here ... I thought it was the amendment that was supposed to guarantee all the others. Huh!
Right to bear arms? Careful, you might come off as defending one of the rights favorite amendments LOL. I fail to see how the second amendment comes into this conversation. Guns on the ground would not bring down the 9/11 jets (doubt anyone endorses bringing guns on airplanes, though marshals would be nice). I also tend to doubt that guns would disarm a suicide bomber, though it might prevent him from triggering.
