US judge rules wiretaps illegal

[Sandman]

Just glad I could be there for you in your moment of need.

[Eagler]

Originally posted by Sandman
Excuse me... I think I can field this question.

Never.

Never is a very long time ..

I'd bet you on this one but neither of us will be around to see the winner

so if your never is your  life span, you are probably correct but if your never is never ever you are wrong

[Edbert1]

Excellent post Shuckins!

Only one part I have to take issue with...

Originally posted by Shuckins
...develop some realistic attitudes about the government and its attempts to guarantee our security.

I think this is the crux of the issue for some, it is for me. See, I do not see our government as a gurantor of my saftey. They can mandate a warning label on my screwdriver that says not to poke it into my eye, but that is no guarantee it wont happen. They can pass 20,000 firearm laws but again that does not guarantee I wont get shot by some crackhead who failed to read or ahdere to those statues.

I just don't see any guarantees of personal safety coming from the pen of a legistlator. All I see are restrictions on personal freedoms coming from those pens. Don't get me wrong, I recongnize that laws are necessary, but most of the time they get enforced after the fact, they guarantee nothing.

I do see where our government can supliment our collective safety. Take our military for example. A strong military (along with some obvious geographical advantages) has made the USA safe from military invasion since the Canadians tried it. But all the immigration laws they've passed have failed to prevent a very real invasion that has been ignored by the same folks who pass the thousands of laws.

Again, I just take issue that the government is willing much less able to guarantee any indivudual's safety. Now, guaranteeing an individuals' rights to personal freedom USED to be handled by the consitution, and I applaud this judge's ruling in that regard.

[Yeager]

"I would say that those who herald this decision simply do not understand the nature of the world in which we live"

Sometimes old George actually makes sense.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/08/18/bush.ap/index.html

[Sandman]

Originally posted by Eagler
Never is a very long time ..

I'd bet you on this one but neither of us will be around to see the winner

so if your never is your  life span, you are probably correct but if your never is never ever you are wrong

Well... I'm betting it will last longer than the lifespan of my children's children.

[Edbert1]

Originally posted by Yeager
Sometimes old George actually makes sense.

I think many who are happy with the decision, not necessarilly those posting here, are happy because it is not what Dubya wants. I am NOT one of them.

Personally I hope the NSA gets to listen in on any phone call that goes to or from overseas, as well as any phone call that goes to or from suspected terrorists. I just want them to get a warrant and not step all over the 4th amendment.

[Rolex]

Echelon has been around for decades so this nothing really new. The latest NSA episode was supposedly based on developing social network patterns, which even the developers and experts of it say was a nice idea for a time and made for pretty diagrams, but none of them have any value. It's like reading tea leaves.

The terror industry is just like any new industry: create a market then fill that market need. Show up in Washington with any half-baked "anti-terror" idea and you'll likely get a contract.

The TSA itself has said that they're spending money as fast as they can (the true measure effective programs in Washington, which is going to have to be paid for by whom?), but security is no better now than it was 5 years ago.

Old-fashioned investigation of people with motive, people who acquire materials, people reported for suspicious behavior and investigators as smart, or smarter, as the people they investigate is, I think, more effective. Unless I get a contract for my new "terror anticipating ouiji board detector." That will be effective, I promise. I can advertise it on the "Terror Channel." 24 hours of global terror information, alerts, tips, terror business news and video footage of planes crashing into buildings over and over.

You can't stop determined and clever crazy people from doing something 100% of the time. Won't happen. But the odds of it happening are not higher now than 10 years ago. Meanwhile, watching the other drivers on the highway are still your best protection at saving your hide.

Nevertheless, someone has to watch the watchers and listeners because someone will always abuse authority and power.

[bj229r]

Originally posted by Rolex
..........

Old-fashioned investigation of people with motive, people who acquire materials, people reported for suspicious behavior and investigators as smart, or smarter, as the people they investigate is, I think, more effective. Unless I get a contract for my new "terror anticipating ouiji board detector." That will be effective, I promise. I can advertise it on the "Terror Channel." 24 hours of global terror information, alerts, tips, terror business news and video footage of planes crashing into buildings over and over.


You can't stop determined and clever crazy people from doing something 100% of the time. Won't happen. But the odds of it happening are not higher now than 10 years ago. Meanwhile, watching the other drivers on the highway are still your best protection at saving your hide.

Nevertheless, someone has to watch the watchers and listeners because someone will always abuse authority and power.

So...as to my previous post which noone has addressed, WHAT if some VERY well-behaved Muslim youths (citizens, not citizens, whichever you prefer) are in our country, doing NOTHING outwardly suspicious (other than calling a number in Yemen once a month or so on a throw-away cell phone)....and they blow up several airplanes, maybe the Capitol building (one can hope)....are we going to blame Bush & company for not stopping them?

[Sandman]

Originally posted by Sandman
Well... I'm betting it will last longer than the lifespan of my children's children.

I should add... I don't believe that either or war on drugs or the war on terror will ever be won.

Eventually, they'll just end.

Both are futile.

[lasersailor184]

Originally posted by Sandman
Source?

I believe I heard it on Curtis and Cuby, two radio commentators from new york.  Cuby is a liberal lawyer who brought it up.  Curtis was the founder of the Guardian Angels.  Very interesting combination which leads to many funny discussions.  (I think it was them though, I'm not paying attention on the trip up to where I work).


Anyway, one of the things any case needs to have to proceed forth is that the plaintiff needs to have been wronged in some case.  Or at least wronged in their point of view.  So, say that someone had their conversations recorded without a warrant.  They then sue the federal government, claiming that the wiretaps are unconstitutional, and the case proceeds from there.

The problem is that the plaintiffs in this case, were NOT wronged.  They were just a group of people that *Might* have had their phones tapped without a warrant.  I believe (I'd have to check) that they never brought up evidence (or proof) that they were tapped.  So this means that the plaintiffs weren't even wronged in their point of view, they were suing for the sake of suing.

And since this judge took this case, it is a major break of law that she did, and thus she took the case with a judgement predertimined.


I did hear on another show that you can impeach Judges for such things.  I might have heard that the president could impeach judges himself, but again with the "half paying attention" thing.

[bj229r]

So...as to my previous post which noone has addressed, WHAT if some VERY well-behaved Muslim youths (citizens, not citizens, whichever you prefer) are in our country, doing NOTHING outwardly suspicious (other than calling a number in Yemen once a month or so on a throw-away cell phone)....and they blow up several airplanes, maybe the Capitol building (one can hope)....are we going to blame Bush & company for not stopping them?

So...that is the acceptable downside of this ruling? (Have seen/heard several legal types in print/tv saying the ruling is somewhat weak, likely won't stand)

[Sixpence]

Originally posted by Edbert1
I think many who are happy with the decision, not necessarilly those posting here, are happy because it is not what Dubya wants. I am NOT one of them.

Personally I hope the NSA gets to listen in on any phone call that goes to or from overseas, as well as any phone call that goes to or from suspected terrorists. I just want them to get a warrant and not step all over the 4th amendment.

From what I understand, through the fisa court you can tap for up to 72 hours before getting the warrant. So why pass the fisa court? It was created for situations just like we are in now.

I feel like we do not have a president and congress anymore, I feel we live under a king who feels he does not have to answer to the people, and we rid ourselves of kings a long time ago.

And Yeager, that quote can be used for many things, i.e,

Judge rules that taking away citizens guns without cause is unconstitutional

"I would say that those who herald this decision simply do not understand the nature of the world in which we live"

[bj229r]

Originally posted by Sixpence
From what I understand, through the fisa court you can tap for up to 72 hours before getting the warrant. So why pass the fisa court? It was created for situations just like we are in now.

I feel like we do not have a president and congress anymore, I feel we live under a king who feels he does not have to answer to the people, and we rid ourselves of kings a long time ago.

And Yeager, that quote can be used for many things, i.e,

Judge rules that taking away citizens guns without cause is unconstitutional

"I would say that those who herald this decision simply do not understand the nature of the world in which we live"

Worse, the judge clearly failed to do enough homework to understand the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act itself, much less the Fourth Amendment. She gets basic provisions of the statute itself wrong, e.g., apparently believing that a provision explicitly dealing with foreign agent/non-U.S. persons communications constitutes an “exception” to FISA’s warrant requirements. She also seems to make the elementary and fatal mistake made by many commentators, that the government can, under FISA, listen in on conversations for 72 hours without meeting FISA’s substantive and procedural tests. This is simply false. NSA cannot lawfully, under FISA, listen to a single syllable of a covered communication until it can prove to the Attorney General (usually in writing) that it can jump through each and every one of FISA’s procedural and substantive hoops. These basic errors could have been corrected had the court bothered to gather any evidence or hold substantive hearings.

More worrisome still are the judge’s breathtaking mistakes in analyzing the Fourth and First Amendments—errors that would earn our first-year law student an “F.” Here’s one of several examples: The judge asserts that the Fourth Amendment, in all cases, “requires prior warrants for any reasonable search, based upon prior-existing probable cause.” She cites no legal authority whatsoever for this colossal misstatement of the law, because none exists. Instead, there are numerous situations where our courts have found no prior warrant is required, so long as a search is “reasonable.” Fatal to her position is the very Supreme Court case she herself cites. This landmark 1972 electronic-surveillance decision, the Keith case, makes clear that, though it establishes a warrant requirement for purely domestic security cases (decidedly not what the TSP is, raising the alarming possibility the judge may think the TSP is a “domestic” program), the Fourth Amendment does not always require a prior warrant for government searches. Rather, the need for warrants depends on a balancing of the government’s legitimate needs, such as protecting us from attack, against other constitutional interests.

— Bryan Cunningham served in senior positions in the CIA and as a federal prosecutor under President Clinton, and as deputy legal adviser to the National Security Council under President George W. Bush. He is a private information security and privacy lawyer at Morgan & Cunningham LLC in Denver, Colorado, and a member of the Markle Foundation Task Force on National Security in the Information Age. Along with the Washington Legal Foundation, he filed an amicus brief in this case, and has testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the Terrorist Surveillance Program.

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OWVlOGNiZmIyMmZkYTg2OGFiYzM3ZGU4Nzc0MjFjNzQ=

[bj229r]

Originally posted by Sandman
Source?

I knew I'd heard about this:

Earlier, Chief Judge Anna Diggs Taylor of the federal District Court in Detroit tried to take the suit against the law school away from Judge Bernard Freedman, who had been assigned it through a blind draw--and who was suspected of being skeptical about affirmative action--and consolidate it with a similar suit against the university's undergraduate admissions practice, which Judge Patrick Duggan was hearing. The chief judge dropped that effort was dropped after the judge hearing the law school complaint went public with a blistering opinion objecting to what he termed "the highly irregular" effort of the chief judge. Judge Duggan ruled in favor of the undergraduate racial preferences, while Judge Freedman ruled against the law school preferences.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/tbray/?id=110001857

(This was the famous affirmative action case at Michigan Law School....and it is safe to assume that Judge Diggs, an African-American female appointed by Carter, is PRO affirmative action)

[Eagler]

"In 1984, Taylor banned nativity scenes on municipal property in Birmingham and Dearborn in ACLU lawsuits."

She's an ACLU hack from the beginning and a LIBERAL & loyal dem. Not to say she hasn't done good works in the past but show me where she has ever ruled against the ACLU..