Sorry it took me a while to login to this thread today. I was doing author things. I have several books in need of agents. I'm in the process of sending out query letters.

Thanks for all the support for this thread.

You're welcome, Ladybug. I am pleased to provide the information in a way that makes it amenable to civilized discussion. I agree with what you said about Bush's affect on the economy, the fate of our sons and daughters who are sent into a questionable war verses his views on abortion. Apparently he is capable of astounding mental gymnastics.

Smile, I thank you for adding your comments and for the article you submitted. They make us think. That's one of the reasons I started this thread. I, too, want our country to continue to eavesdrop on terrorists - but only within the law. This country is supposed to be a democracy - at least that's what our leaders want us to think.

So what does the word democracy mean? The American Heritage Dictionary defines democracy this way:

quote:
de·moc·ra·cy n., pl. de·moc·ra·cies. 1. Government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives. 2. A political or social unit that has such a government. 3. The common people, considered as the primary source of political power. 4. Majority rule. 5. The principles of social equality and respect for the individual within a community.
The American Hertitage Dictionary defines dictatorship as:

quote:
dic·ta·tor·ship, n. 1. A government in which a single leader or party exercises absolute control over all citizens and every aspect of their lives: a. autocracy b. absolutism 2. A political doctrine advocating the principle of absolute rule: a. despotism b. autocracy c. totalitarianism d. authoritarianism e. absolutism 3. Absolute power, especially when exercised unjustly or cruelly: a. tyranny b. despotism c. autocracy d. totalitarianism
Myself, I prefer democracy, but when our executive branch acts on its own, usurps the law, guess where we are headed?

As Pattyann mentioned I did post a notice at the beginning of this thread. Thanks for mentioning it. I know political topics can become heated and finding yourself in the middle of something you don't want to be part of can be unsettling.

Unique, you're lucky. You didn't have to transition away from republicanism. I was raised in a conservative Christian republican household. I didn't learn enough in high school to help me decide which party's values I should embrace. Could be I wasn't paying attention. It was during the Vietnam war that I became a democrat,although really, my party affiliation falls between the cracks.

Casey, thanks for adding your constitutional knowledge to this thread. I greatly appreciate it. I do not have a copy of it nearby. From the looks of things it would be wise if I got one.

DJ, thanks for pointing out Bamford's statement of summation. These have become "the bad old days."

Norma, I so value your views as a person from another country looking into our dirty laundry room and seeing the heaps of stuff piled everywhere. Sometimes it's harder to see our own filth. I'm ready to dump it all the the washer, add bleach and vast amounts of soap.

Now to my comments about the article Smile submitted.


"Why Bush decided to bypass court in ordering wiretaps Panel of judges modified his requests"

quote:
Government records show that the Bush administration was encountering unprecedented second-guessing by the secret federal surveillance court when President Bush decided to bypass the panel and order surveillance of U.S.-based terror suspects without the court's approval.
Regardless of whether or not the Bush administration liked the "modified requests" the President's obligation to the nation and its people is to uphold the law. His actions do not uphold the law. Perhaps his "requests" were modified because they were not justified, after all, isn't determining such things one of the main purposes of our court system? Secondly, I get the feeling that the phrase "second guessing" is a childish way of saying, "You didn't side with me, so I'm going to cry 'foul'." I seriously doubt that the court "second guesses". I would think that, if anything, since they are competent judges, they saw an incorrect or illegal justification within the request and, until it is proven otherwise, acted within the law to modify the request - an example of our laws and constitution executed appropriately.

quote:
A review of Justice Department reports to Congress shows that the 26-year-old Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court modified more wiretap requests from the Bush administration than the four previous presidential administrations combined.
This is a leading statement that right away attempts to incite and bias the reader because it doesn't address how many requests the current administration actually made, so it's hard to tell if four times the number of modifications is actually a high percentage compared to the four previous administrations. For example, if he put in ten times the number of requests, four times the amount of modifications isn't really all that much - a total number can be misleading if the percentages aren't included. Incomplete information has often been used to justify actions. (Later in the article figures are eventually given, and you can read my comments about them.)


quote:
"They wanted to expand the number of people they were eavesdropping on, and they didn't think they could get the warrants they needed from the court to monitor those people," said Bamford, author of "Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency" and "The Puzzle Palace: Inside America's Most Secret Intelligence Organization." "The FISA court has shown its displeasure by tinkering with these applications by the Bush administration."
Here, again, I take exception to the word "tinkering". It's on the same level as the phrase "second guessing". Apparently, Bamford, as with Bush, doesn't like the fact that the court saw flaws in the administrations requests. He's using the same degrade and deride attitude Bush and Cheney use when someone reveals their underhanded tactics - referring to the descenters as miscreants and calling them unpatriotic.

quote:
To win a court-approved wiretap, the government must show "probable cause" that the target of the surveillance is a member of a foreign terrorist organization or foreign power and is engaged in activities that "may" involve a violation of criminal law.

No 'probable cause'

Faced with that standard, Bamford said the Bush administration had difficulty obtaining FISA court-approved wiretaps on dozens of people within the United States who were communicating with targeted al Qaeda suspects inside the United States.

"The court wouldn't find enough 'probable cause' to give the Bush administration wiretap warrants on everybody that talks to or e-mails the terror suspect that they were trying to target," Bamford said.
The use of the word "wouldn't" in the last sentence makes it sound like they weren't looking for probable cause and are trying to punish the president or not take seriously his requests. As I said before, they are competent judges, and my guess is they "didn't" find probable cause. Could it also be that not everyone who knows a terrorist actually knows that that person "is" a terrorist? Also, is everyone who knows a terrorist also a terrorist? Guilt by association only works when both parties are involved in the activity. A good example is the Unibomber. His brother knew him but was not involved in any of the bombing plots - in fact, the Unibomber's brother was the one, who once realizing who the Unibomber was, turned him in. I bring this up because it's important to remember that our laws use the guiding premise "innocent, until proven guilty".

quote:
The judges modified only two search warrant orders out of the 13,102 applications that were approved over the first 22 years of the court's operation. In 20 of the first 21 annual reports on the court's activities up to 1999, the Justice Department told Congress that "no orders were entered (by the FISA court) which modified or denied the requested authority" submitted by the government.

But since 2001, the judges have modified 179 of the 5,645 requests for court-ordered surveillance by the Bush administration. A total of 173 of those court-ordered "substantive modifications" took place in 2003 and 2004, the most recent years for which public records are available.
Here, finally, are figures that can be turned into percentages. And the percentage of modification is indeed higher than in previous administrations. Regardless of the percentages, however, it's still illegal and an infringement of civil rights to circumvent the courts. It may well be true that the current administration felt that all instances were justified, but they were apparently unable to convince the courts that 179 of them were justified. I see this (in light of 179 out of 5,645 requests being only 3.17094 percent - with the original 13,102 having had only 2 modifications, that brings the total modifications/rejected/deferred count to 181, this in turn brings the total percent of modified/rejected requests on 18,740 submissions to a mere ,097118463 %) as not being an exorbitant amount of modifications that indicate the courts are willfully hindering any investigation and definitely, it is not just cause to break the law.

quote:
The judges also rejected or deferred at least six requests for warrants during those two years -- the first outright rejection of a wiretap request in the court's history.
Without seeing the rejected and deferred requests, it's impossible for an uninformed citizen to make an informed justification regarding the rejection/deferment. And since we will not see them, as they are considered classified and secret, and since, as mentioned above, the judges on the court appear to be competent, I yield to their decision.

quote:
"FISA is very important in the war on terror, but it doesn't provide the speed and the agility that we need in all circumstances to deal with this new kind of threat," Gonzales said.
This point has been addressed in almost all the previously posted articles. Surveillance can be started immediately, provided the court is petitioned within 72 hours, and almost all petitions (96.82906% under the current administration) have been granted. Again, as has also been brought up in those previous articles, Gonzales' statement is not a justification for the president to break the law. Even Colin Powell (in an article presented today and which will be addressed in full in a later post), though he supports eavesdropping, questions bypassing the court.

In a strange turnabout, toward the end of the article, I found the following statement:


quote:
Bamford, 59, a Vietnam-era Navy veteran, likens the Bush administration's domestic surveillance without court approval to Nixon-era abuses of intelligence agencies.
Go figure! That's tantamount to a contradiction of his earlier whining.

Perhaps the article's final statement (in line with all I've said, above (that there is no justification to the Bush/Cheney assault on our civil liberties and breaking the law)) sums it all up the best:

quote:
"NSA prides itself on learning the lessons of the 1970s and obeying the legal restrictions imposed by FISA," Bamford said. "Now it looks like we're going back to the bad old days again."
I only question, why then are they allowing themselves to be a part of it? Makes you kind of wonder if Bamford and the NSA might not really be against the administration's jusfications, too.