For instance, what if drug war enforement gets allowed through the Patriot Act? Then NSA snoopers will be able to “held” FBI, state, and local authorities to track illegal drug activity. Mission creep is one danger the NSA snooping-domestic links present. In fact, if there is ony one danger, this (whether drugs or whatever) is it!

So far, no major abuse of the Pat Act have surfaced. This is where Congress is right to sunset it and review it periodically. There have been rumors that Clinton used the vast NSA snooping apparaatus to gain competitive intel for US corporations; they then, it is said, rewarded Clinton with campaign donations.

If the above case is true, then there is another form of abuse. But client politics, while clearly abusive, is far from civil liberties violations like smearing or suppressing dissent.

The most likely form of “oversight” Congressional inquiry’s are likely to come up with are even more likely to mutate. This is another danger. For example, suppose Congress sees fit to have a “secret oversight” committee empowererd to police NSA activity. What are ther chances that ethic politicization of the kind Glenn Reynolds has sqewered won’t ensue?

I’m very worried that any “solution” will be worse than the disease. Here’s hoping that Congress does no more than what has proved enough to work so far – tghe status quo.

I should certainly hope so!

This really is a war and real people have been killed in it. There are some people within our borders whose loyalties lie elsewhere. Remember those 5 “insurgents” in Lakawanna NY? Another member of their book club was blown up in Yemen when a Predator was used on an al Qaeda guy. If the information came from listening in on their phone calls, I’m not too upset.

“By general law life and limb must be protected; yet often a limb must be amputated to save a life; but a life is never wisely given to save a limb.”

Lincoln correctly sums up the futility of civil-libertarian puritanism at a time of war.
-Steve
h/t: Powerline Blog 12/26/05

In a late 80′s Mandarin class at the U. of Wa., Seattle, a student complained about China’s policy of opening incoming mail. My Chi-Lit professor, an levelheaded veteran of the foreign service, asked the class if they really thought the U.S. government didn’t read a private letter or two as well.

He said, “Sorry to break the news to you, but they do.”
You could hear a pin drop as the entire class digested this iconoclasm.
-Steve

Of course, it would help if their overreach didn’t include students who have lied defended by Senators who confuse Marx with Mao with militant Muslims. Taranto).

Such confusion (and unwillingness to notice we have moved into the twenty-first century) makes those of us who want both security and liberty to be a bit hesitant to trust Bush’s opponents.

Why FISA” because a previous presient, Nixon, abused intel and this court instituted as check on such abuses.

As for Mission of NSA, you simply do not know because their Mission statement can not be read because why? National Security!

Unless you have about 10 sitting judges available 24/7/365 on this, we’re going to lose.

Laws haven’t kept up w/technology.

The most effective way to tap (until the next technology escalation when IPv6 rolls out later this decade) is seize everything and computer analyze it for keywords. Once you’ve seized everything (ECHELON), what, exactly, is the point of a warrant when a phone number pops up in a terrorist’s phone. You’re just pulling from your own existing database. In other words, it’s not a new search requiring a warrant. It’s data mining existing information, connecting the dots work.

You’re right: this has been going on and such programs as ESCHELON are public knowledge–there have even been movies detailing the surveillance abilities available to the government–and there is political hypocrisy in much of the opposition’s outrage. I’m just saying that most of the outrage appears to be with it’s extrastatutory legality, not with the program’s mere existence.

I don’t think anyone IS surprised that calls are being monitored. It’s the ‘without warrants’ part that bugs, especially since there is a 72 hour window after the fact in which to apply for warrants for monitoring that has already taken place. People’s trust in Bush was already low when this news broke. This gives the appearance not only of lawlessness in the face of a law that is already bending over backwards to accomodate the need for swift decisions but of a President that thinks that he can do whatever he wants with no oversight from other branches of government.

I am neither surprised nor offended by the ordered surveillance within the parameters laid out by the White House–only international calls are being monitored and only of those being connected to Al Qaeda or some AQ connected group. The problem is, with no oversight, even from after the fact, how are we to know that the NSA is staying within the parameters. One doesn’t need to be a hard-core Libertarian to recognize the dangers of such a secret operation. Such monarchical power is the very reason that the framers put multiple checks on power into the Constitution. They could be monitoring ANYBODY for any reason to gather any information for any use short of use against in a court of law. Imagine the possibilities! The President’s opponents have and they don’t like what they see.

I never thought that my life would be considered interesting by anyone until I started to blog.

Criminey, I was in Europe in ’82 and I knew then my calls back home were being monitored. Why is this such a suprise?

You got me, Sandy.

James