Warentless Taps

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scottc
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Warentless Taps

Post by scottc » Tue Feb 14, 2006 2:48 pm

I am not for these wiretaps, but here is another prime example of how the media will not tell how it is.

Let's see if the lamestream media runs with this story since they just ran with JC's attacks on the Bush administration for doing the exact same thing that both he and clinton did. Not only that, in his speech he referenced the wiretapping of ML King, which was authorized and carried out Robert Kennedy. The hypocrisy knows no bounds.

Carter authorized warrantless wiretaps - upheld by courts


quote:
Former President Jimmy Carter, who publicly rebuked President Bush's warrantless eavesdropping program this week during the funeral of Coretta Scott King and at a campaign event, used similar surveillance against suspected spies.
"Under the Bush administration, there's been a disgraceful and illegal decision -- we're not going to the let the judges or the Congress or anyone else know that we're spying on the American people," Mr. Carter said Monday in Nevada when his son Jack announced his Senate campaign.

"And no one knows how many innocent Americans have had their privacy violated under this secret act," he said.
The next day at Mrs. King's high-profile funeral, Mr. Carter evoked a comparison to the Bush policy when referring to the "secret government wiretapping" of civil rights leader Martin Luther King.

But in 1977, Mr. Carter and his attorney general, Griffin B. Bell, authorized warrantless electronic surveillance used in the conviction of two men for spying on behalf of Vietnam.
The men, Truong Dinh Hung and Ronald Louis Humphrey, challenged their espionage convictions to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, which unanimously ruled that the warrantless searches did not violate the men's rights.

In its opinion, the court said the executive branch has the "inherent authority" to wiretap enemies such as terror plotters and is excused from obtaining warrants when surveillance is "conducted 'primarily' for foreign intelligence reasons."
That description, some Republicans say, perfectly fits the Bush administration's program to monitor calls from terror-linked people to the U.S.

The Truong case, however, involved surveillance that began in 1977, before the enactment of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which established a secret court for granting foreign intelligence warrants.
Democrats and some Republicans in Congress say FISA guidelines, approved in 1978 when Mr. Carter was president, are the only way the president may conduct surveillance on U.S. soil.

Administration officials say the president has constitutional authority to conduct surveillance without warrants in the name of national security. The only way Congress could legitimately curtail that authority, they argue, is through an amendment to the Constitution.
The administration's view has been shared by previous Democrat administrations, including Mr. Carter's.

When Mr. Bell testified in favor of FISA, he told Congress that while the measure doesn't explicitly acknowledge the "inherent power of the president to conduct electronic surveillance," it "does not take away the power of the president under the Constitution."
Jamie S. Gorelick, deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration, agreed. In 1994 testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Miss Gorelick said case law supports the presidential authority to conduct warrantless searches and electronic surveillance for foreign intelligence purposes.

Earlier this week, however, Mr. Carter said it was "ridiculous" for Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales to say the spying is justified by Article II of the Constitution.
Republicans say they welcome such criticism because it proves Democrats can't be trusted with national security.

"Just when you thought that the Democrats' image of being soft on defense issues couldn't get any worse, enter the sage wisdom of President Jimmy Carter to save the day," said Brian Nick, spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

IZZY_T
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Post by IZZY_T » Wed Feb 15, 2006 4:32 pm

And the two headed naked chicken keepson dancing. :mrgreen:




WAKE UP.

ALL OF US ARE effectively "TAPPED" .

Stories about being "tapped" or "traced" (like even 10 year olds haven't heard of caller ID) are part of the Government complacent media-disinfo campain to keep you stupid and occupied with meaningless privacy concerns.

Worring about "wiretaps" is like worring your telagraph line may be subject to maruading Apaches

Here is some info on the OLD "Echelon" system, there is now a simmilar, but more sophisticated program in place:

ECHELON is a highly secretive world-wide signals intelligence and analysis network run by the UKUSA Community. [1] ECHELON can capture radio and satellite communications, telephone calls, faxes and e-mails nearly anywhere in the world and includes computer automated analysis and sorting of intercepts. [2] ECHELON is estimated to intercept up to 3 billion communications every day.

History

Reportedly created to monitor the military and diplomatic communications of the Soviet Union and its East Bloc allies during the Cold War in the early sixties, ECHELON is today believed to also search for hints of terrorist plots, drug-dealers' plans, and political and diplomatic intelligence. But some critics claim the system is also being used for large-scale commercial theft and invasion of privacy.

In May 2001, the European Parliament produced a report on ECHELON [3] which, amongst other things, recommended that citizens of member states routinely use cryptography in their communications to protect their privacy. In the UK, the government introduced the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act which gives authorities the power to demand that citizens hand over their encryption keys, without a judge-approved warrant. In April 2004, the European Union decided to spend 11 million EUR developing secure communication based on quantum cryptography — the SECOQC project — a system that would theoretically be unbreakable by ECHELON or any other espionage system.

ECHELON monitoring of mobile phones in Pakistan was reportedly used to track Khalid Shaikh Mohammed before he was arrested in Rawalpindi on March 1, 2003.

Before the September 11, 2001 attacks and the legislation which followed it, US intelligence agencies were generally prohibited from spying on people inside the US and other western countries' intelligence services generally faced similar restrictions within their own countries. There are allegations, however, that ECHELON and the UKUSA alliance were used to circumvent these restrictions by, for example, having the UK facilities spy on people inside the US and the US facilites spy on people in the UK, with the agencies exchanging data (perhaps even automatically through the ECHELON system without human intervention).

The proposed US-only "Total Information Awareness" program relied on technology similar to ECHELON, and was to integrate the extensive sources it is legally permitted to survey domestically, with the "taps" already compiled by ECHELON. It was cancelled by the U.S. Congress in 2004.

It has been alleged that in 2002 the Bush Administration extended the ECHELON program to domestic surveillance. This controversy was the subject of the New York Times eavesdropping exposé of December, 2005. [4] [5] [6] [7]. Evidence exists to suggest that ECHELON was already being used for domestic eavesdropping during the Clinton administration [8], although testimony by then-CIA director George Tenet indicates that the use of ECHELON during the Clinton administration was authorized by the FISA Court, as required by law [9].

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON

also

http://www.hamradio-online.com/1996/dec/echelon.html


Splitter
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Post by Splitter » Fri Feb 17, 2006 3:56 pm

Yeah? So what. Do you think that we are free miraculously? Some how, we became a free nation because.. we just did?

Yeah, if you are on a cell phone and you mention anything related to bombing.. or killing... or chemical warfare, it's a fair bet that eventually someone who can do something about it will hear it.

Law abiding citizens have nothing to worry about. Only shitbags who want to do bad things need to worry about it.

Surely you don't think that this sitting president is the only president who has authorized a wire tap without a court order. If you believe that, then you need to do some research.

<--not worried about being tapped.
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Post by McKirdyP » Wed Feb 22, 2006 3:59 pm

I like to think my thoughts on the subject are hybrid.

First, IF I was planning a nefarious act I would not use ANY electronic communication means that was not encrypted. Obviously associated with cough cough, but anyway... :twisted: Needless to say do I care if I'm heard espousing my grocery list to my girlfriend? No. Goodness I don't even care if the IRS wants to audit me, I'd make them coffee. Hopefully they'd find that I had to give them 20 dollars back and I'd contragulate them on their brilliant use of government funds to get that 20 dollars.

I do however NOT want the government performing warantless taps. Do I believe that they do it all the time? Hell yes I believe they do it all the time, though I would never confirm nor deny it. Not that I am in a position to HAVE to neither confirm nor deny the fact. In any event, I would rather that We the People forcibly remind the government that they do not control us and we can and will set them straight physically if necessary. If ANYONE believes that congress is going to maintain that fact then I have a bridge to sell them in Brooklyn, or however that saying goes.

Do I want them to perform the taps if they need to? YES! Find the bastards trying to bring this country down and string them up! But in every case where it involves a citizen get the tap approved and reviewed and get the after-tap warrant, there is no reason not to.

If we live the idea of the founding document then it is our responsiblity to maintain valid limits on the scope and interference level of the federal government. This country's destiny direction and means of implementing such is all of our responsibility. That is what phrases to the effect of those who sacrifice liberty for security are all about.

We all know about opinons though :)

-Paul

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