Talk:NSA warrantless surveillance (2001–2007)/Archive 2

message: The title NSA surveillance without warrants controversy does not roll off from the tongue very easily... how about NSA surveillance controversy? Titoxd(?!? - help us) 22:50, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: NSA surveillance is always controversial, even when it is done under a FISA court order. I think that title, while somewhat clunky, is accurate and limits the scope of the article. - Ta bu shi da yu 14:09, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: We could put "2005" in the title.  Something like 2005 NSA controversy or 2005 NSA surveillance controversy would be better, in my opinion. Alternatively, or in addition, "surveillance without warrants" could be changed to "warrantless surveilance." Dave (talk) 01:50, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: No one has commented so far.  Should I be bold? Dave (talk) 03:23, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Go ahead! - Ta bu shi da yu 00:39, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Done.  I also created some redirects and fixed existing ones.  I now have seven versions of this article on my watchlist :-) Dave (talk) 00:55, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that this is a much better title. I've updated articles linking to the old title to point to the new title.  mmmbeerT / C / ? 03:03, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rename? 

message: This seems to be pretty lopsided against Bush.  Things that should be added are Jamie Gorelick's House testimony when she was in the Clinton administration that says the President has this authority.  It should include the Aldrich Ames matter as a case when the President not only did this but ended up with a conviction.  It should include Carter and Reagan did this.  It should also include several court cases that uphold that this is valid. -- Jbamb 23:26, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Cass Sunstein, who is no fan of Bush, argues that the monitoring is at least arguably legal.  A New York Times op-ed argues in favor of Bush as well.  I'm not sure how to insert these; we probably want a daughter article for the legality section. In the mean time, ya'all can be bold and put this stuff in or wait for me to do it, whichever you prefer.  Dave (talk) 02:55, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Is it possible to have an NPOV article on the legality of this if the legal community and experts in the field can't even come into a consensus?  -- Jbamb 17:43, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  The better question is whether this article is still so POV as to require the NPOV banner.  I personally don't think it is.  mmmbeerT / C / ? 20:40, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with Beer. Mmmm. Dave (talk) 00:00, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

text: This article still needs massive NPOV work. I saw sections which stated a conclusion that the warantless surveillance is backed by caselaw something that I and many others from both political parties would disagree with. -- SusanLarson New talk, Contribs)</sup></span>10:20, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I hate to sound like a jerk, but it doesn't matter if you disagree with conclusions held by analysts.  Their conclusions were recorded and cited, not held forward as fact.  Make sure you evaluate the article's content, not just scan for phrases in contrast with your point of view. DRJ 14:15, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

text:  Also, if you actually READ the article, you'd see that the section that supports of the idea that case law MAY support a president's Art. II authority in this situation is far more nuanced than you right.  The very last paragraph has a significant caveat--namely that no court has really addressed the issue at hand.  However, court HAVE in the past supported very broad interpretation of the executive's authority on issues of security.  If you wish to dispute that, go ahead.  Also, this is not to suggest that other important authorities on the issue do not exist (see the Federalist papers), but they're not case law. mmmbeerT / C / ? 15:07, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I am going to have to be a jerk right back, I apologize in advance. The POV of an article can be skewed simply by quoting one sides point of view to exclusion of the other. I am saying the article should present both view points that it is legal and the view point that it is not and the justification for both of them and then let the reader decide. This section appears to echo the talking points used by the administration to justify their actions. Get some arguments for the other side and go from there. I am not saying I support the program or that I don't. I am just saying it needs balance. Other than that I think the point of view of the article is fine. -- SusanLarson New talk, Contribs)</sup></span> 08:32, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

text:  I propose to replace POV with POV-section in the Legal issues section. -- SusanLarson New talk, Contribs)</sup></span> 08:32, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV 

message: Rather than revert, research lead placed above the article by a suspected sockpuppet. But if there is no motivation to keep the place up, a couple of labels is going to be the extent of my maintenance. Metarhyme 17:47, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV back due to sockpuppet newlead 

message: I'm not a lawyer, and I wanted to make sure that this edit interprets Kerr correctly.  Thanks for checking up on me, Dave (talk) 22:51, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Someone should double-check me 

message: This article states that "Second, FISA permits the President to authorize the Justice Department to conduct foreign intelligence surveillance for up to one year without a court order". I have read parts of FISA (I had to for research into Title II of the Patriot Act), and I don't remember reading this. I do remember reading that the surveillance can be renewed for up to a period of one year by the FISC. I don't think they can actually do surveillance for up to a year without a court order! 
Can we get a source on this statement? I would be happy with a reference to FISA or the U.S. code. - Ta bu shi da yu 23:35, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clarification 

message: These sections were added by an anonymous user/users.  The "technical" section may have a lot of true statements (I've read some pretty scary things about data mining) it needs to be verified.  I don't know about the other one.  Dave (talk) 02:57, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: * It's a copyvio - I saw this text somewhere on the web, not sure where though. 207.172.134.175 17:27, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Editorializing 

message: I'm looking at recent changes to the legal analysis of AUMF as statutory authorization under FISA.  Let's be clear here, there are two ways to use AUMF under FISA.  First, it could be understood as a declaration of war for purposes of 50 U.S.C. §1811.  In this case, you get into the semi-ambiguous language which permits the president to "authorize electronic surveillance without a court order under this subchapter to acquire foreign intelligence information for a period not to exceed fifteen calendar days following a declaration of war by the Congress".  I take it that the person that made the change read this to mean "in the 15 days following a declaration of war the president may authorize indefinite surveillance".  That may be one interpretation.  The other way to read it is, "after a declaration of war, a president can authorize surveillance for periods not to exceed 15 days". Either interpretation seems to work.
Second, as I originally intended the paragraph and the interpretation relied upon by the administration, AUMF may provide an out from criminal and civil liability under 50 U.S.C. §§ 1809 and 1810.  Under those provisions (and the analogous ones for physical searches), there is no liability if the actions were "authorized by statute".  AUMF may be such statutory authorization.
I am going to revert the paragraph tomorrow morning if no one objects.  As it is now, I'm not even sure that it gets the law correct. mmmbeerT / C / ? 03:59, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Legal analysis' "statutory exemption" paragraph 

message: Is the neutrality of the article still in serious dispute? I think as it stands it does a decent job of being NPOV. I'd be inclined to remove the NPOV flag if no one has a specific objection. -- John Callender 16:58, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not certain about removing it. The problem, I suggest, is that much of the article concerns a legal analysis of what happened, but such is inherently speculative. Until the various issues go before an actual US court and the various legal arguments are tested, it is difficult to say anything verifiable that isn't just "one analysis says this..." and "one analysis says that...". Those analyses are obviously politically sensitive. So, what is the best way of handling the uncertainty? I don't think we've found it yet, because the article still reads in parts as saying "this is the truth" over matters that remain unclear (e.g. is the US at war). Bondegezou 17:17, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Part of the problem is that this is still fresh news, and the problem with the media lately is that they run to press so quickly before the issues are fully vetted and we only get skin-deep details.  If you ignore the fact that the NY Times sat on this story for over a year before publishing it. 171.159.64.10 13:56, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think I can do NPOV here. The NYT report that the program's expansion was resisted needs some text. I could flesh out the brief mention but I hope someone else will. Metarhyme 05:18, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Silly question ,but how is it that an article is POV because the ultimate legal conclusion is currently unknowable?  While it's true that non-inclusion of relevant information might be POV; this doesn't really seem to be the case here.  Indeed, if anything, this is a relitively inclusive. Likewise, saying the the article is in need of expansion doesn't make it POV either.  So saying that we haven't fully incorporated particular source material doesn't mean that it's POV.  I see nothing from the nays (as in, keep the NPOV tag) to suggest it really is POV. mmmbeerT / C / ? 15:11, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I would be very conservative about removing the NPOV tag.  I have problems with the POV of certain sections as it currently stands.  If the POV of various positions in the controversy can be fairly presented, that's the best one can hope for.  For example, I would note that Yoo's opinion is at odds with James Madison's in Federalist No. 51Billbrock 01:59, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

text: OK, I heard you volunteer there to clean up my mess. Metarhyme 04:02, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

text: One word yes I seriously dispute the article as it currently stands. Conclusions of fact are stated as undisputed in the article and that needs to be fixed. -- SusanLarson New talk, Contribs)</sup></span> 10:23, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removal of NPOV flag? 

message: The article says that 4 were briefed about the program.  The WP article it cites says that one person briefed four legislators.  Two other sources say that eight legislators were briefed.  I believe that it's possible that one person briefed four and another person briefed four, bringing the total up to eight, and the article should be changed.  Does this look correct to everyone else? Dave (talk) 00:07, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Should include Kennedy who was apparently briefed and expressed support a few days prior to this story being broken and then expressed moral indignation... I'll find a source. -- Jbamb 01:01, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Number of legislators briefed? 

message: Will someone with a neutral point of view please expand on the Times' New Year's day report on the Bush subordinates unwilling to break the law? I inserted a lead with a footnote linked to the piece at the bottom of the NYT story section. Metarhyme 04:58, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: NYT

message: There's a Register Guard op-ed article that I think is pretty interesting. - Ta bu shi da yu 01:37, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The President's cabinet officers do not certainly have immunity, which is a snag in the "unchecked power" pitch. Alito counseled holding off on asking unconditional immunity for them in his memo on Mitchell v. Forsyth. The right of citizens to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures is protected by the 4th Ammendment to the United States Constitution, which applies to electronic eavesdropping domestically. NSA is supposed to refrain from spying stateside. Metarhyme 09:01, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Register-Guard op-ed piece 

message: In a press conference on December 19th by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and General Michael Hayden, Principal Deputy Director for National Intelligence, General Hayden argued that the FISA process, even under an emergency authorization by the Attorney General, would not meet the program's necessity for agility and speed. He revealed that the actual decisions regarding interception were made by a shift supervisor with the approval of another person, operating under general guidlines, suggesting that the process is a real time or near real time process. General Hayden revealed that the surveillance program had been successful in circumstances where FISA was deemed inadequate:
:Q Have you identified armed enemy combatants, through this program, in the United States?
:GENERAL HAYDEN: This program has been successful in detecting and preventing attacks inside the United States.
:Q General Hayden, I know you're not going to talk about specifics about that, and you say it's been successful. But would it have been as successful -- can you unequivocally say that something has been stopped or there was an imminent attack or you got information through this that you could not have gotten through going to the court?
:GENERAL HAYDEN: I can say unequivocally, all right, that we have got information through this program that would not otherwise have been available.
:Q Through the court? Because of the speed that you got it?
:GENERAL HAYDEN: Yes, because of the speed, because of the procedures, because of the processes and requirements set up in the FISA process, I can say unequivocally that we have used this program in lieu of that and this program has been successful.
Gen. Hayden also commented on the provisions in FISA allowing for emergency authorization by the Attorney General prior to obtaining a warrant. He stated that even an emergency authorization under FISA required marshaling arguments and "looping paperwork around". He implied that the decisions on whom to intercept were being made in real time or near real time by a shift supervisor and another person, but refused to discuss details of the requirement for speed.
----
Seems to repeat itself... can we rephrase? - Ta bu shi da yu 09:23, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: In a press conference on December 19th by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and General Michael Hayden, Principal Deputy Director for National Intelligence, General Hayden said, "This program has been successful in detecting and preventing attacks inside the United States." Gen. Hayden also commented on the provisions in FISA allowing for emergency authorization by the Attorney General prior to obtaining a warrant. He stated that even an emergency authorization under FISA required marshaling arguments and "looping paperwork around". He implied that the decisions on whom to intercept were being made in real time or near real time by a shift supervisor and another person, but refused to discuss details of the requirement for speed.Metarhyme 18:33, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hearing no dissent, rephrasing substituted for ta bu shi da yu complaint content. Metarhyme 18:24, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry I haven't commented! This looks much better :) Well done Metarhyme. - Ta bu shi da yu 09:18, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If no one truthful, then confusion. Laws of physics have truth. Laws of humans not. Thus one who understands may take up the one thing and put down the other. So I stop editing this article and start chasing lines in space with math, due to its being a more fruitful activity. 207.172.134.175 22:38, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Badly phrased 

message: I think we need to fix the "The New York Times report" section.  Among the necessary changes: keep it related to the original (and all directly related) articles about the disclosure of the NSA surveillance scheme.  In some sense, the NYT's role is important: the one year delay, the new book, the actual disclosure of classified information, etc.  I'm not sure that the section is about those things any longer.  It seems to have become a collection of revelations in the media--some substantiated, some not.
There's a certain level of incoherence there currently. mmmbeerT / C / ? 22:04, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, I pluralized "report" and push-down stacked it, tightening the latest items. It's a safe assumption Bush's Executive Order is classified. Someone else may want to trim the December 16,2005 bit. Metarhyme 05:19, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The NYT report 

message: On a somewhat related issue, I'm not sure what the purpose of the "reaction in the press" how are the responses of several unsigned editorials indicative of any real substance?  There's lots of mad people about every topic.  A better section might be "reaction OF THE press" given the First Amendment questions regarding the disclosure of classified information.
As it stands now, I'm not sure that there's anything there of value.  The cited papers aren't particularly huge authorities either.  mmmbeerT / C / ? 22:07, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Also, Reaction in the press

message: Judith A. Emmel, a spokeswoman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said, "[Hayden] had authority under E.O. 12333 that had been given to him, and he briefed Congress on what he did under those authorities." First of all, in the congressional reaction section, I footnoted this to 3, the NYT Hayden story, but it shows footnote 25. Someone needs to fix that - I don't know how. Next, there is a question about whether eo12333 authorizes the head of the NSA to do what he did. Emmel may be relying on The Intelligence Community sections (a) through (e), and after he got approval (f) of eo12333. Before he got approval sections Collection of Information, Collection Techniques, Attorney General Approval, and Consistency With Other Laws and others of eo12333 read like prohibitions, rather than authorizations. We wait for someone to bellow? Metarhyme 04:18, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Executive Order 12333

message: On January 4, 2006, The New York Times printed a story revealing that General Michael Hayden, director of the NSA in 2001, commenced warrantless blended international/domestic surveillance, basing his authorization on Executive Order 12333, which is based on the National Security Act of 1947.
On January 1, 2006, The New York Times printed a story revealing that aspects of the program were suspended for weeks in 2004. The NYT story said the U.S. Attorney General's office balked in 2004 when asked to give approval, then James B. Comey "played a part in overseeing the reforms that were put in place in 2004," but the oversight by the NSA shift supervisor continued to be unfettered by any pre-approval requirement. The story also said that there had been resistance at the NSA to the program.
On December 16, 2005, The New York Times printed a story revealing that, under White House pressure and with an executive order from President George W. Bush, the National Security Agency had been conducting warrantless phone-taps on people in the U.S. calling people outside of the country, in an attempt to combat terrorism.  
:Under a presidential order signed in 2002, the intelligence agency has monitored the international telephone calls and international e-mail messages of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people inside the United States without warrants over the past three years in an effort to track possible "dirty numbers" linked to Al Qaeda, the officials said. The agency, they said, still seeks warrants to monitor entirely domestic communications.
According to the Times:
:The White House asked The New York Times not to publish this article, arguing that it could jeopardize continuing investigations and alert would-be terrorists that they might be under scrutiny. After meeting with senior administration officials to hear their concerns, the newspaper delayed publication for a year to conduct additional reporting. Some information that administration officials argued could be useful to terrorists has been omitted.
Some have claimed that the New York Times' decision to publish the article may have also violated U.S. laws protecting highly-classified information. In the past, prosecution for publication of highly classified information has been muted, in large part due to the inherent risks of exposing even more classified information during the process of adjudication.
This really doesn't flow, and besides which is out of chronological order. Anyway we can get this improved? Also, it states that "Some have claimed" - this is a weasel word. Who claimed this? - Ta bu shi da yu 07:26, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bad flow... 

message: The activity preceded the Executive Order in 2002, so the article's statement that
: "The NSA subsequently began performing wiretaps on international communications" 
at the beginning of the article isn't accurate. It's clear from Pelosi's letter to Hayden that it was going on in October of 2001, and the Blogosphere has it starting right after Bush was sworn in, but that isn't a good citation. If the NSA went ahead on a wink and a nod, accepting that into the article means a drastic change. It seems to me there is a general will to play ostrich on this topic - we really don't want to know who did what when, but the misstatement of fact - this lie in the article - bothers me. Does it make anyone else feel uncomfortable? Metarhyme 19:32, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry -- I should have realized the import of this talk-page header. Yes, "subsequently" bothers me too. We need a revision, not sure what it should be just now. BYT 12:59, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Reading State of War by James Risen - maybe a clue there. Thanks for responding. Metarhyme 15:21, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

text: dftt's Metarhyme 00:02, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: "The NSA subsequently"

message: On January 20, according to Los Angeles Times and other news papers, the Justice Department defended President Bush's surveillance program (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-spy20jan20,0,2000868.story?coll=la-headlines-nation). At first glance, the defence seems to lend credibility to the Bush Administration use of surveillance. However, a further look reveals that the Justice Department, run by the Attorney General (Alberto Gonzales), belong under the President's Cabinet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justice_Department, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Attorney_General). This means that Attorney General Gonzales ultimately answers to President Bush. This should challenge the credibility of the Justice Department's statement, in my view, due to a conflict of interest. -PJ
:Yesterday I put that and Cheney's speech in the Administration Response section. The DoJ website hasn't posted anything on their (40 page?) analysis reportedly sent to congress - maybe it's secret. If the pdf shows up there should be a link to it.
::The pdf is available at http://hotlineblog.nationaljournal.com/archives/White Paper on NSA Legal Authorities.pdf so the 42 page white paper is not secret. I linked to it in the article. Metarhyme 21:44, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The judicial branch (which is not Gonzales et. al. - it's the judges and courts) could try to settle the argument, but it doesn't have to - it could decide to tell the other two branches to work out their differences. At least a dozen high level officials in the executive branch have been covertly talking to reporters, indicating that the executive branch is divided. The legislative branch is also divided. The judiciary is divided. The media is divided. The People is divided. Maybe world opinion counts, also. Metarhyme 18:38, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Justice Department 

message: According to Gen. Michael Hayden, who The Merrcury News refers to as the nation's No. 2 intelligence official, defended domestic eavesdropping by insisting that the U.S. doesn't waste time spying on innocent Americans [my emphasis] (http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/13697424.htm). Does this mean that it is ok to spy on innocent non-Americans? Furthermore, who says that the person who in fact is under surveillance is not innocent? "Innocent" is a legal label, just as "guilty" is, and it is up to a court to determine whether a person is innocent or guilty. So either the NSA are overstepping their authority when deciding for themselves who is innocent and who is guilty, or there must be a prior sentence. Now if there is a prior sentence, the question to ask is 'of what?'. Will any prior sentence do, like a speeding ticket, or does it have to be related to the reason for which he is being spied on? What in fact is Hayden saying? -PJ
:Well, yes. A FISA based surveillance order is authorised by the FISC if there is probable cause that a person is an agent of a foreign power. This applies to Title II of the Patriot Act, the specific sections that I'd suggest that you review are Section 214: Pen register and trap and trace authority, and Section 215: Access to records and other items under FISA. Section 215 states that the US Govt may "make an application for an order requiring the production of any tangible things (including books, records, papers, documents, and other items) for an investigation to obtain foreign intelligence information not concerning a United States person or to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities".
:Now the definition of foreign intelligence is defined in  to mean "information with respect to a foreign power or foreign territory that relates to, and if concerning a United States person is necessary to the national defense or the security of the United States; or the conduct of the foreign affairs of the United States."
:From what I understand (please be aware IANAL) the court is not meant to decide on the validity of the information when they authorise the order (the lawyer Andrew McCarthy says that "it is not the judiciary’s place to question bona fides of a co-equal branch carrying out its own constitutional function"), but it is meant to authorise the order based on whether it does or does not violate the constitutional rights of citzens. The FISC's role in the FISA surveillance order is to make sure the executive branch is not abusing its powers. They don't decide whether the surveillance is actually correct and supervise the order, they just make sure that the surveillance is being done in accordance with the law, and doesn't step outside of this.
:Hope this makes sense. - Ta bu shi da yu 03:05, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Won't Spy on Innocent Americans 

message: From http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011306Z.shtml:
:The National Security Agency advised President Bush in early 2001 that it had been eavesdropping on Americans during the course of its work monitoring suspected terrorists and foreigners believed to have ties to terrorist groups, according to a declassified document.
:The NSA's vast data-mining activities began shortly after Bush was sworn in as president and the document contradicts his assertion that the 9/11 attacks prompted him to take the unprecedented step of signing a secret executive order authorizing the NSA to monitor a select number of American citizens thought to have ties to terrorist groups.
truthout.org is a partisan website, but it seems to me the notion that, like invading Iraq, he considered or started this before 9/11 is note-worthy. Have any more credible sources confirmed this? Ken 19:43, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's murky. The article used to read, "The NSA subsequently" which got corrected after I pleaded your plea (see above). Removing contested NPOV from the article (it is drifting back) took many hands more than a week. When Coleen took over as head of the FISC I think she got the act cleaned up somewhat - that's the 2004 rukus. If she did have a role, due to its secrecy it can't be cited. I think it's like the NOLA 18 wheelers wandering all over the place ultimately to drop off the ice in Maine. They were trying. That would have been kept secret if it could have been. Signing statements might be the next scandal. Metarhyme 20:22, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: truthout.org is indeed a very partisan website.  Ken's quote above is their take on the "declasified documents", not a quote from the "declasified documents" themselves.  While it may be true that "the (NSA) advised President Bush in early 2001 that it had been...", nowhere is it confirmed that the "NSA's vast data-mining activities began shortly after Bush was sworn in..."  That is truthout.org's spin.  As I said above in another subsection, this has been going on for many previous administrations.  For example President Clinton's use of Echelon in spying on right-wing militia groups.  Again, I'm not saying whether President Bush is right or wrong.  But we need to stop pretending like this is something new.  The issue is not when this began. The issue is the president's goals/motives/rationale. Warrantless surveilance is constitutional in the President's role as Commander-in-Chief if necessary to protect National Security or prosecute a war.  It is most definately not constitutional if used for law-enforcement, political or personal purposes.  User:RShackleford  04:00, 07 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I recommend your checking out Signing statements which contains this sentence: "In Chadha in particular the Supreme Court makes clear that anything which threatens to place the entire control of all three branches of government in a single source is tyranny and against everything the constitution stands for." In Re Sealed Case ruled it can be used for law enforcement. Presidents besides Nixon have used warrantless surveillance for political and personal purposes. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was crafted to end the abuses. Bush getting caught has upset some Senators - not just democrats. Metarhyme 05:20, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Time of initiation of domestic spying 

message: Bush insists that the program should be referred to as "terrorist surveillance program" rather than "domestic spying without a warrant" (http://msnbc.msn.com/id/11018747/). It will be very interesting to see if the media catches on to this new term, discarding the old one. The new term definately have a different connotation from the old one, adopting the power word (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_word) "terrorist". As the issue over inheritance tax illustrates, the terms used can come to influence opinion (see "Death-tax" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_tax). PJ 13:14, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It will probably go about as far as "homicide bomber" did.  Still, it is worth mentioning in the article as it shows the attempt to redirect the issue away from the real topic. --StuffOfInterest 14:38, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, it is an attempt to redirect the issue to the real topic.  If Al-Qaeda is calling people or vice-versa, whether here in the US or anywhere else, I want the government to know what's being said, immediately.  And this is within the President's pervue as Commander-in-Chief under Article II.  Terrorists are terrorists whether they're using a domestic phone or a foriegn one.  User:RShackleford  04:15, 07 February 2006 (UTC)

text: I have added a sentence on the use of this term in the "Administration's respose" section.  Kgwo1972 17:37, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Power of Names