posted December 23, 2005 11:00 PM              

it would be the beginning
of the end,

of life as we know it
a path we don't want to
go down

posted December 23, 2005 11:16 PM            

Friday, December 23, 2005
WASHINGTON - Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito defended the right of government officials to order domestic wiretaps for national security when he worked at the Reagan Justice Department, an echo of President Bush's rationale for spying on U.S. residents in the war on terror.

Then an assistant to the solicitor general, Alito wrote a 1984 memo that provided insights on his views of government powers and legal recourse - seen now through the prism of Bush's actions - as well as clues to the judge's understanding of how the Supreme Court operates.

The National Archives released the memo and scores of other documents related to Alito on Friday; the Associated Press had requested the material under the Freedom of Information Act. The memo comes as Bush is under fire for secretly ordering domestic spying of suspected terrorists without a warrant.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said Monday he would ask Alito about the president's authority at confirmation hearings beginning Jan. 9. The memo's release Friday prompted committee Democrats to signal that they will press the conservative jurist about executive powers.

The memo dealt with whether government officials should have blanket protection from lawsuits when authorizing wiretaps. "I do not question that the attorney general should have this immunity," Alito wrote. "But for tactical reasons, I would not raise the issue here."

Despite Alito's warning that the government would lose, the Reagan administration took the fight to the Supreme Court in the case of whether Nixon's attorney general, John Mitchell, could be sued for authorizing a warrantless domestic wiretap to gather information about a suspected terrorist plot.

The FBI had received information about a conspiracy to destroy utility tunnels in Washington and to kidnap Henry Kissinger, then national security adviser, to protest the Vietnam War.

In its court brief, the government argued for absolute immunity for the attorney general on matters of national security.

"The attorney general's vital responsibilities in connection with intelligence gathering and prevention in the field of national security are at least deserving of absolute immunity as routine prosecutorial actions taken either by the attorney general or by subordinate officials.

"When the attorney general is called upon to take action to protect the security of the nation, he should think only of the national good and not about his pocketbook," the brief said.

Signing the document was Rex E. Lee, then the solicitor general, officials from the Justice Department and Alito.

Alito's analysis about the court and the need for an incremental legal strategy proved prescient. The case ultimately led to a 1985 ruling by the Supreme Court that the attorney general and other high level executive officials could be sued for violating people's rights, in the name of national security, with such actions as domestic wiretaps.

"The danger that high federal officials will disregard constitutional rights in their zeal to protect the national security is sufficiently real to counsel against affording such officials an absolute immunity," the court held.

However, the court said Mitchell was protected from suit, because when he authorized the wiretap he did not realize his actions violated the Fourth Amendment.

The decision was consistent with the Supreme Court's unanimous ruling in 1972 that it was unconstitutional for the government to conduct wiretaps without court approval despite the Nixon administration's argument that domestic anti-war groups and other radicals were a threat to national security.

Alito had advised his bosses to appeal the case on narrow procedural grounds but not seek blanket immunity.

"There are also strong reasons to believe that our chances of success will be greater in future cases," he wrote. He noted that then-Justice William H. Rehnquist would be a key vote and would recuse himself from the Nixon-era case.

The documents were among 45 released by the National Archives as the holiday weekend approached. A total of 744 pages were made public.

The White House and Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, a member of the Judiciary Committee, dismissed any link between the 1984 memo to Bush's authorization of electronic surveillance without a warrant to thwart terrorism.

"Any connection between Judge Alito's 1984 memorandum and the current discussion of terrorist surveillance by the NSA is a real stretch," Cornyn said in a statement.

But Democrats seized on the memo and vowed to press Alito on the matter at his confirmation hearings.

"At a time when the nation is faced with revelations that the administration has been wiretapping American citizens, we find that we have a nominee who believes that officials who order warrantless wiretaps of Americans should be immune from legal accountability," said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.

Bush picked Alito to take the Supreme Court seat held by Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who is retiring.

Among the documents released Friday was a June 1985 memo in which Alito said abortion rights should be overturned but recommended a roadmap of dismantling them piece by piece instead of a "frontal assault on Roe v. Wade."

The June abortion memo contained the same Alito statements as one dated May 30, 1985, which the National Archives released in November - but with a forward note from Reagan administration Solicitor General Charles Fried acknowledging the volatility of the issue and saying it had to be kept quiet.

"I need hardly say how sensitive this material is, and ask that it have no wider circulation," Fried wrote.

Alito, a federal appellate court judge, has been seeking to assure senators that he would put his private views aside when it came time to rule on abortion as a justice. O'Connor has been a supporter of the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling affirming a woman's constitutional right to an abortion.

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On the Net:

Alito documents: http://www.archives.gov

posted December 23, 2005 11:29 PM            

Friday, December 23, 2005
WASHINGTON - A classified radiation monitoring program, conducted without warrants, has targeted private U.S. property in an effort to prevent an al-Qaida attack, federal law enforcement officials confirmed Friday.

While declining to provide details including the number of cities and sites monitored, the officials said the air monitoring took place since the Sept. 11 attacks and from publicly accessible areas - which they said made warrants and court orders unnecessary.

U.S. News and World Report first reported the program on Friday. The magazine said the monitoring was conducted at more than 100 Muslim sites in the Washington, D.C., area - including Maryland and Virginia suburbs - and at least five other cities when threat levels had risen: Chicago, Detroit, Las Vegas, New York and Seattle.

The magazine said that at its peak, three vehicles in Washington monitored 120 sites a day, nearly all of them Muslim targets identified by the FBI. Targets included mosques, homes and businesses, the magazine said.

The revelation of the surveillance program came just days after The New York Times disclosed that the Bush administration spied on suspected terrorist targets in the United States without court orders. President Bush has said he approved the program to protect Americans from attack.

Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Washington-based civil rights group, said Friday the program "comes as a complete shock to us and everyone in the Muslim community."

"This creates the appearance that Muslims are targeted simply for being Muslims. I don't think this is the message the government wants to send at this time," he said.

Hooper said his organization has serious concerns about the constitutionality of monitoring on private property without a court order.

Brian Roehrkasse, a Justice Department spokesman, said Friday that the administration "is very concerned with a growing body of sensitive reporting that continues to show al-Qaida has a clear intention to obtain and ultimately use chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear" weapons or high energy explosives.

To meet that threat, the government "monitors the air for imminent threats to health and safety," but acts only on specific information about a potential attack without targeting any individual or group, he said.

"FBI agents do not intrude across any constitutionally protected areas without the proper legal authority," the spokesman said.

In a 2001 decision, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that police must get warrants before using devices that search through walls for criminal activity. That decision struck down the use without a warrant of a heat-sensing device that led to marijuana charges against an Oregon man.

Roehrkasse said the Justice Department believes that case does not apply to air monitoring in publicly accessible areas.

Two federal law enforcement officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because the program is classified, said the monitoring did not occur only at Muslim-related sites.

Douglas Kmiec, a professor of constitutional law at Pepperdine University, said the location of the surveillance matters when determining if a court order is needed.

"The greatest expectation of privacy is in the home," said Kmiec, a Justice Department official under former presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. "As you move away from the home to a parking lot or a place of public accommodation or an office, there are a set of factors that are a balancing test for the court," he said.

Despite federal promises to inform state and local officials of security concerns, that never formally happened with the radiation monitoring program, said an official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.

The official said that after discussions with attorneys*Yep, it's those damn commie, leftist lawyers that JW loves so much are at it again, just can't stop that compulsion of acting like republicans anymore, can they* some state and local authorities decided the surveillance was legal, equating it to air quality monitors set up around Washington that regularly sniff for suspicious materials.

"They weren't targeting specific people, they were just doing it by random, driving around (commercial) storage sheds and parking lots," the official said.

Asked about the program's status, the official said, "I'd understood it had been stopped or significantly rolled back" as early as eight months ago.

Such information-sharing with state and local officials is the responsibility of the Homeland Security Department, which spokesman Brian Doyle said was not involved in the program.

---

Associated Press Writer Lara Jakes Jordan contributed to this story.

---

On the Net:

Justice Department: http://www.usdoj.gov

Homeland Security Department: http://www.dhs.gov

posted December 23, 2005 11:33 PM              

"this is true..just as patriotism is now interpreted
to condone murder..killing..and selfish greed

for, patriotism is a good vibrational thought form
only when it symbolizes and represents
loyalty and devotion to all Earthlings
as brothers and sisters..to all Nations..and eventually
to all Universes likewise

just as Divinity
is a good vibrational thought form on Earth
only when it symbolizes or represents
all men and women as the Sons and Daughters
Of God, the Father--and His Mate
who is the MOther of all Life forms upon your planet

posted December 26, 2005 01:12 PM            

quote:

---

Those who are in this country illegally, those who have made false statements on applications to enter the US, even those naturalized citizens who have made false application to the United States...are NOT "United States Persons"....jwhop

---

quote:

---

Well that... pretty much tells me JW that's about anybody and everybody that resides within the United States then. So, what's your point?...Ozone

---

You really are a hopeless case aren't you Ozone? Everyone in the United States is in the country illegally Ozone? Everyone in the United States is a "naturalized" citizen, or an illegal alien, or has entered the country under a false application to be here. Hello Ozone, wake up and pull your head out of your @ss.

posted December 26, 2005 01:28 PM            

Facts, those pesky little details which derail every radical leftist initiative. Facts, the enemy of the radical left.

A Warrantless Attack
By Michael P. Tremoglie
FrontPageMagazine.com | December 26, 2005

Since President Bush has been in office, the American public has endured a steady stream of bizarre conspiracy theories and lies about him by his political enemies – including the liberal media.

The president has been blamed for everything from knowing in advance about 9/11 (proffered by DNC Chairman Howard Dean and current Georgia Democrat Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney) to Rathergate.

Now the most recent iteration of the "Bush is a Nazi" mantra is that President Bush illegally authorized unconstitutional, warrantless, electronic surveillance of American citizens. Specifically Bush is accused of illegally authorizing warrantless, electronic surveillance of the international communications of people with known links to al-Qaeda and related terrorist organizations.

Is this illegal?

According to the soi disents guardians of our civil liberties – such as the ACLU – it is. These noble people have already acted as judge, jury, and executioner (so much for their professed worship of the Bill of Rights).

Also Democratic Senator Russ Feingold called the president "King George Bush." Pat Leahy, who in 1987 resigned from the Senate Intelligence Committee because he allegedly leaked classified information, said, "The Bush administration seems to believe it is above the law." Sen. Robert Byrd snickered at the idea that the president has Constitutional authority. John Kerry is talking about impeachment.

As usual, the mainstream media journalists are trying to slant the information to portray President Bush as negatively as possible. A December 18, 2005, Los Angeles Times story by staff writers David G. Savage and Bob Drogin claimed:

Bush said his decision was "fully consistent with my constitutional responsibilities and authorities." And the president's lawyers have maintained that the commander in chief has the "inherent" authority to act in the interest of national security, even if he overrides the law...But the Supreme Court did not accept that claim when it was tested in the past…In 1972, the justices unanimously rejected President Nixon's contention that he had the power to order wiretapping without a warrant to protect national security.

This is only partly true.

They eventually tell the whole story a few paragraphs later by writing, "(Justice Lewis F.) Powell said the court was not ruling on the ‘president's surveillance power with respect to the activities of foreign powers, within or without this country.’" (Emphasis added.)

Also, no one ever said President Bush could violate the law as the Times’ piece claims. What the administration’s legal advisers have said is that he acted legally.

The Supreme Court case to which the L.A. Times’ journalists referred is known as "Keith." It is just one part of the jurisprudence about warrantless surveillance. The court’s opinion stated, "We emphasize, before concluding this opinion, the scope of our decision…this case involves only the domestic aspects of national security. We have not addressed, and express no opinion as to, the issues which may be involved with respect to activities of foreign powers or their agents."

The jurisprudence involving wiretaps dates to 1928. The Supreme Court case of Olmstead v. United States (217 U.S. 438), a criminal case, resulted with the Court stating the use of warrantless wiretaps was not unconstitutional, because the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement did not include conversations. The Court ruled, "The reasonable view is that one who installs in his house a telephone instrument with connecting wires intends to project his voice to those quite outside, and that the wires beyond his house, and messages while passing over them, are not within the protection of the Fourth Amendment."

Subsequently, the 1974 Third Circuit Court’s opinion in U.S. v. Butenko was, "foreign intelligence gathering activity…may be conducted through warrantless electronic surveillance." The Court stipulated "[a]s Commander-in-Chief, the President must guard the country from foreign aggression, sabotage, and espionage."

The Fifth Circuit 1974 case of Ivanov v. United States (419 U.S. 881), stated that "warrantless electronic surveillance (is) permitted so long as the primary purpose was to obtain foreign intelligence."

Finally, the opinion of the DC District Court in the 1980 case of Chagnon v. Bell confirms presidential authority to conduct warrantless surveillance. It said:

Examination of presidential practice in this area lends further support to the District Court's finding that the Truong tap violated no "clearly established" law. As we suggested earlier, every President since Franklin D. Roosevelt has claimed the "inherent" constitutional power to authorize warrantless surveillance in cases vitally affecting the national security. Furthermore, all Presidents to hold office since Katz was decided have advocated a broad exception to the warrant requirement for surveillance targeted at agents of foreign governments. Indeed, public and congressional recognition of the consistency of such assertions of presidential power…. (Emphasis added.)

The jurisprudence involved with electronic surveillance for foreign intelligence collection - and the fact the warrantless searches by law enforcement are not uncommon and legal - would indicate that Bush’s assertion of authority is correct. The Judicial Branch and the Legislative Branch of the federal government have always acknowledged that the Executive Branch has authority to act in the interest of national security – especially when foreign threats are involved.

These facts do not lend any credibility to the hysterical pronouncements by Democrats and other political enemies of the president that he is usurping power. The facts certainly do not justify the attitude of the mainstream media.

When a journalist asked President Bush a question implying that he asserted unchecked powers with his approval of electronic surveillance that reporter revealed his ignorance for all the world to see.

The president’s political enemies are either ignorant or blatantly mischaracterizing crucial aspects of American law. One would not expect journalists to know much , however, one would expect that Senators and Congressional Representatives know the law.

posted December 26, 2005 04:22 PM            

Congradulations JW, you have just been busted and it couldn't happen to a better person then....

ME!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

When you pasted this up on your last post:

quote:

---

Those who are in this country illegally, those who have made false statements on applications to enter the US, even those naturalized citizens who have made false application to the United States...are NOT "United States Persons".

---

...but when you choose not to bother to paste this little peace:

quote:

---

The statute you cite...if you had actually bothered to read it goes on to define "United States Person"...those who may not be randomly monitored.

---

Gee JW, what are you trying to hide there?! Hmmmmmm!

I also busted you on something else too as well!

With the last two posts that I put up, I wrote you a little message on one of them, but you wouldn't have noticed the message,

BECAUSE YOU DON'T READ WHATEVER I PUT UP ANYWAY!

How do I know? Because if you did read the message, you would have been on my @ss about it in you last post!

That means JW, you never ever bother to read anything that might show something neutral to report in the news! Your just too hung up on the far right leaning press that speaks of nothing but BS and all you do is hang on each and every word to it without verifying anyother news source whatsoever!

So there!

HAHAHAHAHA BUSTED BUSTED BUSTED!

Time for the Touchdown Dance!

posted December 26, 2005 05:28 PM            

First Ozone, there are reportedly 15-20 MILLION illegal aliens in the United States. There are many MILLIONS more who are in the United States on student visas, work visas and tourist visas. In addition to all those, there are many more MILLIONS of naturalized citizens in the United States. None of the illegal aliens would ever be considered United States Persons. Of the remaining groups, NONE of them would be considered United States Persons except those who are naturalized citizens. But, NONE of them would be considered United States Persons IF they lied about their reasons for wanting citizenship on their applications for citizenship.

So, if their real purpose was to form terrorist cells, recruit terrorists, fund terrorism or mount terrorist attacks on the United States from within, then they would not be United States Persons and would be fully subject to wiretaps, electronic eavesdropping and interception of communications.

As a consequence of these facts Ozone, your statement that it sounds like just about everyone in the United States IS a United States Person, is clearly not so.

Well Ozone, of course I hang on your every word So, of course I read your little blurb about commie lawyers but then, I didn't see any mention of the ACLU or the National Lawyers Guild in the article you posted.

posted December 26, 2005 09:30 PM            

Let's just admit it JW, you got so so nailed and you know it, or you wouldn't have removed that part of your sentence!

Your play with words got the best of you this time around and there's nothing in this world that your going to say to me, is going to make me think what you want me to think of your little mistake that left you wide open!

You are only human after all, welcome to the land of the mortals!

posted December 28, 2005 05:35 PM            

A new survey found nearly two-thirds of Americans believe the National Security Agency should monitor communications between terrorist suspects overseas and contacts inside the U.S.

According to Scott Rasmussen of Rasmussen Reports, 64 percent of respondents said the super-secret NSA should be allowed to intercept telephone conversations between terrorism suspects in other countries and people living in the United States. Just 23 percent disagreed, the survey found.

Meanwhile, 68 percent of those surveyed said they are following news reports about the NSA somewhat or very closely.

The shadowy agency came under the spotlight recently following reports President Bush authorized warrantless monitoring of American citizens suspected of communicating with alleged terrorists outside of the country.

Federal law requires authorities to obtain warrants from the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, a legal requirement established in 1978 in the wake of the Watergate scandal to deal with terrorism and espionage cases.

But the White House maintains Congress authorized the monitoring when it gave Bush authority to conduct the war against terrorism, though congressional critics of the administration dismiss that claim.

The New York Times, which first broke the story detailing the warrantless eavesdropping, reported Monday the foreign intelligence court is now seeking a briefing from the administration as to why it was bypassed.

"At the same time," the paper reported, "defense lawyers in terrorism cases around the country say they are preparing letters and legal briefs to challenge the NSA program on behalf of their clients, many of them American citizens, and to find out more about how it might have been used."

However, legal hurdles exist, the paper added, because many defendants waived some rights to appeal as part of their plea deals.

Barely one-quarter of those surveyed by Rasmussen, 26 percent, said they believe Bush is the first president to order warrantless eavesdropping. Forty-eight percent said he is not while 26 percent said they weren't sure.

posted December 28, 2005 06:31 PM            

BY ROBERT F. TURNER
Wednesday, December 28, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST

In the continuing saga of the surveillance "scandal," with some congressional Democrats denouncing President Bush as a lawbreaker and even suggesting that impeachment hearings may be in order, it is important to step back and put things in historical context. First of all, the Founding Fathers knew from experience that Congress could not keep secrets. In 1776, Benjamin Franklin and his four colleagues on the Committee of Secret Correspondence unanimously concluded that they could not tell the Continental Congress about covert assistance being provided by France to the American Revolution, because "we find by fatal experience that Congress consists of too many members to keep secrets."

When the Constitution was being ratified, John Jay--America's most experienced diplomat and George Washington's first choice to be secretary of state--wrote in Federalist No. 64 that there would be cases in which "the most useful intelligence" may be obtained if foreign sources could be "relieved from apprehensions of discovery," and noted there were many "who would rely on the secrecy of the president, but who would not confide in that of the Senate." He then praised the new Constitution for so distributing foreign-affairs powers that the president would be able "to manage the business of intelligence in such manner as prudence may suggest."

In 1790, when the first session of the First Congress appropriated money for foreign intercourse, the statute expressly required that the president "account specifically for all such expenditures of the said money as in his judgment may be made public, and also for the amount of such expenditures as he may think it advisable not to specify." They made no demand that President Washington share intelligence secrets with them. And in 1818, when a dispute arose over a reported diplomatic mission to South America, the legendary Henry Clay told his House colleagues that if the mission had been provided for from the president's contingent fund, it would not be "a proper subject for inquiry" by Congress.

For nearly 200 years it was understood by all three branches that intelligence collection--especially in wartime--was an exclusive presidential prerogative vested in the president by Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution. Washington, Madison, Jefferson, Hamilton, John Marshall and many others recognized that the grant of "executive power" to the president included control over intelligence gathering. It was not by chance that there was no provision for congressional oversight of intelligence matters in the National Security Act of 1947.
Space does not permit a discussion here of the congressional lawbreaking that took place in the wake of the Vietnam War. It is enough to observe that the Constitution is the highest law of the land, and when Congress attempts to usurp powers granted to the president, its members betray their oath of office. In certain cases, such as the War Powers Resolution and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, it might well have crossed that line.

Keep in mind that while the Carter administration asked Congress to enact the FISA statute in 1978, Attorney General Griffin Bell emphasized that the law "does not take away the power of the president under the Constitution." And in 1994, when the Clinton administration invited Congress to expand FISA to cover physical as well as electronic searches, the associate attorney general testified: "Our seeking legislation in no way should suggest that we do not believe we have inherent authority" under the Constitution. "We do," she concluded.

I'm not saying that what the president authorized was unquestionably lawful. The Supreme Court in the 1972 "Keith case" held that a warrant was required for national security wiretaps involving purely domestic targets, but expressly distinguished the case from one involving wiretapping "foreign powers" or their agents in this country. In the 1980 Truong case, the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the warrantless surveillance of a foreign power, its agent or collaborators (including U.S. citizens) when the "primary purpose" of the intercepts was for "foreign intelligence" rather than law enforcement purposes. Every court of appeals that has considered the issue has upheld an inherent presidential power to conduct warrantless foreign intelligence searches; and in 2002 the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, created by the FISA statute, accepted that "the president does have that authority" and noted "FISA could not encroach on the president's constitutional power."

For constitutional purposes, the joint resolution passed with but a single dissenting vote by Congress on Sept. 14, 2001, was the equivalent of a formal declaration of war. The Supreme Court held in 1800 (Bas v. Tingy), and again in 1801 (Talbot v. Seamen), that Congress could formally authorize war by joint resolution without passing a formal declaration of war; and in the post-U.N. Charter era no state has issued a formal declaration of war. Such declarations, in fact, have become as much an anachronism as the power of Congress to issue letters of marque and reprisal (outlawed by treaty in 1856). Formal declarations were historically only required when a state was initiating an aggressive war, which today is unlawful.

Section 1811 of the FISA statute recognizes that during a period of authorized war the president must have some authority to engage in electronic surveillance "without a court order." The question is whether Congress had the power to limit such authorizations to a 15-day period, which I think highly doubtful. It would be akin to Congress telling the president during wartime that he could attack a particular enemy stronghold for a maximum of 15 days.

America is at war with a dangerous enemy. Since 9/11, the president, our intelligence services and our military forces have done a truly extraordinary job--taking the war to our enemies and keeping them from conducting a single attack within this country (so far). But we are still very much at risk, and those who seek partisan political advantage by portraying efforts to monitor communications between suspected foreign terrorists and (often unknown) Americans as being akin to Nixon's "enemies lists" are serving neither their party nor their country. The leakers of this sensitive national security activity and their Capitol Hill supporters seem determined to guarantee al Qaeda a secure communications channel into this country so long as they remember to include one sympathetic permanent resident alien not previously identified by NSA or the FBI as a foreign agent on their distribution list.
Ultimately, as the courts have noted, the test is whether the legitimate government interest involved--in this instance, discovering and preventing new terrorist attacks that may endanger tens of thousands of American lives--outweighs the privacy interests of individuals who are communicating with al Qaeda terrorists. And just as those of us who fly on airplanes have accepted intrusive government searches of our luggage and person without the slightest showing of probable cause, those of us who communicate (knowingly or otherwise) with foreign terrorists will have to accept the fact that Uncle Sam may be listening.

Our Constitution is the supreme law, and it cannot be amended by a simple statute like the FISA law. Every modern president and every court of appeals that has considered this issue has upheld the independent power of the president to collect foreign intelligence without a warrant. The Supreme Court may ultimately clarify the competing claims; but until then, the president is right to continue monitoring the communications of our nation's declared enemies, even when they elect to communicate with people within our country.