[Catsmine]

Hello again, smoothy:

Again, you are misinformed.

The Constitution doesn't protect you from what private people can do. It protects you from what the GOVERNMENT can do. I say again, you cannot successfully argue constitutional law with me.

As a matter of fact, your lack of constitutional scholarship is becoming more and more evident. It's a simple document. It's as clear as a bell. The amendments are short and concise. It means what it says, and it says what it means. The federal government may NOT search you without first obtaining a warrant that is only issued after sworn testimony in front of a judge, that something untoward is going on.

THAT'S what the words say.

excon

Which court case said that conversations placed over public carriers are the property or effects of one of the individuals?

Off topic, but what does your Constitutional expertise make of gun control laws?

[excon]

Which court case said that conversations placed over public carriers are the property or effects of one of the individuals?

Off topic, but what does your Constitutional expertise make of gun control laws?

Hello again, Cats:

In fact, I don't know. But, if you accept the premise that the government DOES need a search warrant in order to wire tap you, and you'd have to be blind NOT to accept that premise, then it follows that there ARE, indeed, court cases that state exactly that.

Your off topic answer: I don't know what part of my previous answers are confusing to you. The Constitution is NOT a guideline. It's the LAW. The amendments are clear and concise. They say what they mean, and they mean what they say. "...the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall NOT be infringed." The meaning is as clear as a bell.

excon

PS> You thought I was going to say something else, didn't you? I keep on telling smoothy that it's not a matter of what I WANT. It's a matter of what's LAW.

[Catsmine]

PS> You thought I was gonna say something else, didn't you? I keep on telling smoothy that it's not a matter of what I WANT. It's a matter of what's LAW.

I did wonder. Some others on your side of most of these discussions I think hold different opinions.

Back on topic, does the fact of warrants for some wiretaps make the process illegal or are the warrants just to make them presentable as evidence? The point still stands that wiretaps have been around almost as long as wires, so which President takes the blame - Lincoln? Johnson? Grant?

[excon]

so which President takes the blame - Lincoln? Johnson? Grant?

Hello again, Cats:

Warrants are fine. Bush didn't use 'em. He just threw the Constitution into the trash instead.

excon

[tomder55]

See#178

What Cats is referring to is Lincoln's penchat for tapping directly into the telegraph wires.

President's have exerted CIC powers during wartime to conduct intelligence surveillance against the enemy and the courts have consistently confirmed that authority.
Bush's authoirty was further confirmed in the authorization act passed overwhelmingly by Congress after 9-11(the constitutional eqivalent of a declaration of war).

A special federal appeals court yesterday released a rare declassified opinion that backed the government's authority to intercept international phone conversations and e-mails from U.S. soil without a judicial warrant, even those involving Americans, if a significant purpose is to collect foreign intelligence. The ruling, which was issued in August but not made public until now, responded to an unnamed telecommunications firm's complaint that the Bush administration in 2007 improperly demanded information on its clients, violating constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. The company complied with the demand while the case was pending.

In its opinion, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review ruled that national security interests outweighed the privacy rights of those targeted, affirming what amounts to a constitutional exception for matters involving government interests "of the highest order of magnitude."
The opinion, written by the court's chief judge, Bruce M. Selya, was extraordinary in several respects: It was partly redacted, and it referred to court pleadings that remain sealed. The ruling also hinged partly on a detailed, secret account by the government to the court of its surveillance procedures in 2007.

The judges, who are assigned to the court by the chief justice of the United States, concluded that the government's protections and restrictions included in the 2007 procedures were appropriate. "Our decision recognizes that where the government has instituted several layers of serviceable safeguards to protect individuals against unwarranted harms and to minimize incidental intrusions, its efforts to protect national security should not be frustrated by the courts," Selya wrote in the 29-page opinion.

He added that requiring a warrant in such cases would probably "hinder the government's ability to collect time-sensitive information and, thus, would impede the vital national security interests that are at stake."
A Justice Department statement about the ruling called it "important" because it upheld the legality of Bush administration surveillance directives in 2007.

But independent experts said it is unclear whether the ruling would have a broader effect. The case involved the Protect America Act, a surveillance law that Congress has since altered. The court also declared that its review addressed only how the law was applied in 2007, not its underlying constitutionality.

Since then, Congress has approved new foreign intelligence surveillance legislation. It does not require, for example, that agencies have "probable cause" to believe that the person being targeted is a foreign agent, but instead allows more wide-ranging surveillance. It also does not limit the intelligence-gathering to a 90-day period, as previously required.

Jameel Jaffer, head of the American Civil Liberties Union's national security project, said the appellate court was "wrong to hold that the warrant requirement does not apply to foreign intelligence investigations." But he said its relevance to controversial Bush administration domestic surveillance between 2001 and 2005 is unclear, because so little is known about the nature of those efforts or the Justice Department's underlying legal justifications for them.

"We still don't know what those actions were" and whether they would also have met the court's approval, said Jaffer, who is challenging the constitutionality of the new surveillance law before a New York federal district court.

In this case, the company protested the government's demand for information and initially refused to comply. The Bush administration took the case to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, where U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton upheld the government's position in a secret ruling. The firm began to comply "under threat of civil contempt," the ruling released yesterday said.

In its appeal, the firm disputed the existence of an exemption to the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable search for foreign intelligence surveillance. The company said that even if an exemption did exist, the government's demands were "unreasonable" because collecting such information for foreign intelligence may merely be a "significant" purpose under the law, rather than its "primary" purpose.

The appeals court struck down both arguments. The Supreme Court has recognized other exemptions, the ruling said, citing drug testing without warrants of high school athletes and railroad workers and frisking without warrants of those stopped by police for investigations. Selya also cited as precedent for the panel's conclusion a 1926 ruling by the Supreme Court that government officers should be regarded by the courts as acting properly in the absence of clear evidence to the contrary.

The ruling by the appellate court was only the second to be published. The panel was created in 1978 but did not meet to consider any case until 2002. In that decision, it rebuffed demands by the lower surveillance court to impose restrictions on some FBI wiretaps, ruling that the constraints were not required by the Constitution.

Yesterday's ruling can be appealed only to the Supreme Court.

[Catsmine]

Hello again, Cats:

Warrants are fine. Bush didn't use 'em. He just threw the Constitution into the trash instead.

excon

My problem with your argument is your insistence that this is a recent phenomenon. Lincoln didn't use warrants, nor did Grant, Roosevelt (either of them), Eisenhower, Truman, Carter, or Clinton.

Edit: I'm not sure about Hoover or Reagan, their intelligence people knew how to keep their mouths shut.

[excon]

My problem with your argument is your insistence that this is a recent phenomenon.

Hello again, Cats:

My problem with YOUR argument is that you seem to think there are exceptions to the Constitution when some OTHER president did it first. Should I repeat my, it means what it says, mantra?

THIS discussion emanated from smoothy making wild accusations about the unconstitutionality of the Obama administration. Since he's a tea bagging, birther, right winger type, I suggested that he didn't complain when Bush was violating the Constitution. Then, he looked at me in wide eyed wonderment, and asked how his fearless leader did that? So, I proceeded to tell him. Therefore, Bush IS germane to this conversation...

But, from my point of view, it's not really the ONE violation that makes him the worst president in history. It's his violation of, oh I don't know, four or five constitutional amendments. It's the total of his blatant disregard for our laws that pisses me off. I enumerated them earlier in this thread. I'm not going to do it again, unless you insist.

Suffice to say, the amendments he broke had to do with his prosecution, or ATTEMPTED prosecution of the war detainees. You, my friend Cats, believe that the ends justified the means with THOSE guys, and you and my other friend, smoothy, are HAPPY with the outcomes... So, the fact that our laws were broken because you perceive that a greater good ensued, makes it OK to fudge those laws... May I remind you of smoothy's "guideline" speech? Then you have the gall to argue with me, that what Bush did really didn't violate the Constitution, and you've got all your little lawyers, like John Yoo, who said it's OK... But, it's not OK.

The Constitution is NOT a guideline. It's the law.. By the way, if the Constitution isn't the final say, which document are you looking at? Or, are you guys just making it up as you go along?

excon

[cdad]

Hello again, Cats:

In fact, I dunno. But, if you accept the premise that the government DOES need a search warrant in order to wire tap you, and you'd have to be blind NOT to accept that premise, then it follows that there ARE, indeed, court cases that state exactly that.

Your off topic answer: I don't know what part of my previous answers are confusing to you. The Constitution is NOT a guideline. It's the LAW. The amendments are clear and concise. They say what they mean, and they mean what they say. "...the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall NOT be infringed." The meaning is as clear as a bell.

excon

PS> You thought I was gonna say something else, didn't you? I keep on telling smoothy that it's not a matter of what I WANT. It's a matter of what's LAW.

Just to give you an answer it's the arm of the government ( FCC ) that controls communication. They are the ones with the laws controlling what can and can not be done with electronic transmissions. In some instances like mobile phones it was ruled that they could be listened to but they couldn't be discussed or divulged by private citizens. As far as needing warrants for wire taps they are still needed. Even when they were listening if it crossed a line then a warrat would have to be issued.

[excon]

Hello again,

The above post (actually TWO above) and the arguments contained therein, are a DIRECT result of president Obama, saying he'd rather look forward than backward. By NOT prosecuting Vice and Bush for war crimes, he leaves the door open for revisionist history like the discussion we've been having.

You righty's should LOVE Obama for letting them off the hook. In fact, Obama embraces MOST of the Bush detention policies. Me? I believe it's a clear and utter failure on Obama's part.

A trial would clear up a lot the gobbeldygook people like smoothy, and yourself perhaps, have about the Constitution.

excon

[Catsmine]

The entire debate here, in the media, and in the courts is an example of Americans being too nice. Instead of treating the detainees according to the ILOAC (International Law On Armed Conflict) and shooting them on the battlefield, we set them up in barracks in one of the most beautiful places on earth to keep them from fighting. Stupid us.

[excon]

Americans being too nice. Instead of treating the detainees according to the ILOAC (International Law On Armed Conflict) and shooting them on the battlefield, we set them up in barracks in one of the most beautiful places on earth to keep them from fighting. Stupid us.

Hello again, Cats:

I agree about the stupid... I even agree about shooting the bastards on the field of war - if that's where we found 'em. But, that's not where most of the detainees came from. The were caught by Arab militias, and/or snitched on by pissed off people. In fact, of the 600 "worst of the worst", as Vice called them, over 400 of them have been released because they didn't DO anything.

Now, you don't advocate shooting somebody because somebody else says they're a terrorist, do you? So, what do we DO with those people?

I wish I was a righty. Life is much simpler for you guys.

excon

PS> Jail ain't beautiful no matter WHERE it's located.

[Catsmine]

Now, you don't advocate shooting somebody because somebody else says they're a terrorist, do you? So, what do we DO with those people?

Uh, don't pay for them in the first place?

[galveston]

In view of what this pres is doing I submit the following as a MUST READ.

The Law, by Frederic Bastiat

This doesn't show as a link, so you will have to paste it, I guess.

It is a short book, but most illuminating.

[NeedKarma]

In view of what this pres is doing I submit the following as a MUST READ.

The Law, by Frederic Bastiat

This doesn't show as a link, so you will have to paste it, I guess.

It is a short book, but most illuminating.

Religious mumbo-jumbo. Keep it to yourself.

[Wondergirl]

The Law, by Frederic Bastiat

I've read many books and textbooks. This one makes absolutely no sense at all. He wanders all over the place and throws in a big (or archaic) word every now and then to make the reader think he is saying something important.

[Catsmine]

The Law, by Frederic Bastiat .

I'm afraid I have to semi-agree with Wondergirl, Gal. It's actually better written/translated than most French Revolutionary period literature that I've read, but it's more philosophy than politics. I'm almost certain any parallels between America's slow slide into Socialism and the French plunge of the 19th Century will be ignored or incomprehensible to our current crop of legislators.

[galveston]

The thrust of the argument is that government is supposed to protect citizens from plunder of their natural rights. (So far, so good?)

When the government begins to bring equality to the people, it then begins to plunder the people by the laws that it passes.

One group must be plundered for the benefit of another group to bring about the equality that seems to be so prized.

If you actually read the book, I don't see how you can say it has no correlation to what has been happening in this country for a very long time.

[Wondergirl]

The thrust of the argument is that government is supposed to protect citizens from plunder of their natural rights. (So far, so good?)

Like I said earlier, he wanders all over the place, but never comes to a conclusion.

[Wondergirl]

When the government begins to bring equality to the people, it then begins to plunder the people by the laws that it passes.

How would the people achieve equality otherwise? Would they bring it about on their own, by themselves?

[tomder55]

There is no guarantee of equality of outcome. It's Pursuit of happiness.