1 "Libertarian lunatic fringe" - Sounds a lot like what the British used to call men like Franklin, Adams, Washington, Jefferson, et al.

The point is, US Citizens did not do 9-11; US citizens should not have their Constitution shredded by globalist depots looking for an excuse to further undermine the liberty of the average citizen and foist upon us a life of serfdom.

If we didn't have such a mammoth Military Industrial Complex and National Security State, and minded our own business around the world, nobody would want to bomb us. If we defended our borders properly and inspected cargo more carefully, we'd be much safer than we are now, as the TSA frisks old ladies in airports and everyone looks the other way.

I don't see any terrorists attacking Switzerland, do you?

It's a weird time in America!

2 I'm sorry but I just don't see that the Constitution has been shredded by the Bush administration in terms of terrorist surveillance. It has been cut and pasted into something almost unrecognizable by the Supreme Court. Show me a list of average Americans who have had their phones tapped via a warrantless NSA search and I'll start to panic too. And by average I mean anyone who hasn't been determined via other intelligence to have ties to terrorists whom they are making international calls to.

I shudder to think where we would be today without our mammoth Military Industrial Complex. What do you suppose has kept us free all these years.

As for Switzerland what does that have to do with the price of tea in China? They haven't attacked Luxembourg either.

For all the Henny Penny panic I have yet to see evidence of anyones civil rights being trampled. Except of course for that guy harassed by Homeland Security for trying to check out Mao's Little Red Book.

(Yes I know that was a hoax)

3 For all the Henny Penny panic I have yet to see evidence of anyones civil rights being trampled.

Spoken with eyes pinched closed.

4 On the contrary Rick. Spoken with eyes wide open and looking for the trampling of civil rights and just not finding any.

The potential is there - as it always is - but I just don't see it happening.

5 Just because one's "party" presently holds the White House and Congress, doesn't make it right.

Wait until Hillary gets in the White House. Hannity, Rush and all the other slumbering Country Club Conservatives will suddenly wake up.

Has human nature really changed in the last 250 years?

I think we remember the famous quote by Benjamin Franklin:
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."

6 Wayne,

It has nothing to do with party. If Hillary were President and she did not do everything she could tot intercept the communications of people with known ties to terrorists, even if one end of the call was the in the U.S. I would want her impeached for dereliction of duty.

Likewise if Hillary, Bush or any president from any party was engaged in widespread taping of people's calls for no reason I would want that person out.

So far, all we have is evidence of the first case happening and none for the second.

So I think Ben Franklin can rest quietly for I don't see that we have given up anything (in this case.)

7 You underestimate the capabilities of the NSA. They are listening in on everyone, not only terrorists. There are "sneak and peak" provisions in the Patriot Act, etc, etc.

You're right, nobody knows who the NSA has been listening in on during Bush's watch. Maybe they have been good stewards of the power that these new laws give them, but God help us when we get a president who abuses them.

Some words from Ron Paul:
"The administration assures us that domestic surveillance is done to protect us. But the crucial point is this: Government assurances are not good enough in a free society. The overwhelming burden must always be placed on government to justify any new encroachment on our liberty. Now that the emotions of September 11th have cooled, the American people are less willing to blindly accept terrorism as an excuse for expanding federal surveillance powers. Conservatives who support the Bush administration should remember that powers we give government today will not go away when future administrations take office.

Some Senators last week complained that the Patriot Act is misunderstood. But it's not the American public's fault nobody knows exactly what the Patriot Act does. The Act contains over 500 pages of detailed legalese, the full text of which was neither read nor made available to Congress in a reasonable time before it was voted on- which by itself should have convinced members to vote against it. Many of the surveillance powers authorized in the Act are not clearly defined and have not yet been tested. When they are tested, court challenges are sure to follow. It is precisely because we cannot predict how the Patriot Act will be interpreted and used in future decades that we should question it today."

9/11 was a dreadful act but megalomaniac politicians kill far more people than Islamic terrorists ever will.

President Bush took an oath to support, protect, and defend the U.S. Constitution. The deliberate violation of that oath, even if done with good intentions, must never be tolerated by the American people.

Amendment IV to the US Constitution:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

How will you feel when Hillary does a sneak and peak on your residence because you made her "enemies" list" with your blog?

Powers like this should be given to no human on earth.

8 If Wayne can quote the Constitution I can quote from Federalist #23:
"The authorities essential to the common defense are these: to raise armies; to build and equip fleets; to prescribe rules for the government of both; to direct their operations; to provide for their support. These powers ought to exist without limitation, because it is impossible to foresee or define the extent and variety of national exigencies, or the correspondent extent and variety of the means which may be necessary to satisfy them. The circumstances that endanger the safety of nations are infinite, and for this reason no constitutional shackles can wisely be imposed on the power to which the care of it is committed. This power ought to be coextensive with all the possible combinations of such circumstances; and ought to be under the direction of the same councils which are appointed to preside over the common defense."

If 4th amendment absolutists have their way, and as result we experience, say, 4000 terrorist deaths each year combined with a $100 billion blow to the economy and a 4000 point drop in the dow, I imagine it won't be long before the requisite 2/3 of the states vote to eliminate the 4th amendment entirely.

9 Regarding the fourth amendment, I think the key here is the expression "unreasonable." If your number shows up in a captured terrorist's Palm, is it unreasonable for the government in time of war to keep tabs on you? The amendment and all case precedent does not protect against "any search." Warrantless searches are conducted every day and are not considered unreasonable.

If a cop pulls you over and has reason to believe you have been drinking you can be subject to a personal search in the form of a breathalyzer test. This is not considered an unreasonable search even though it is done without a warrant. And no one is shouting about the death of freedom.

As for how I would feel about Hillary doing a sneak and peak because I made her enemies list with this blog. First I'd be utterly amazed that she even noticed! Second I would feel the same way I would if George Bush did the same thing. Angered and outraged.

I have seen nothing to indicate that any unreasonable powers have been given or taken let alone used.

I don't think the Bush administration has been all that great a friend to the individual liberty and the Bill of Rights. I need only site his signing of McCain/Fiengold to illustrate that point.

As for the 535 members of congress who voted for the patriot act without reading it, that should not be an excuse for passing what they are now calling a bad law. What it should be is reason to vote them out of office. I mean to say "this law is a abomination on civil rights in this country and if I had read it before voting I would have voted against it" isn't exactly a winning campaign sound bite.

10 Terry,

A 4th Amendment absolutist wouldn't be the problem because they would not skip over the word "unreasonable."

11 Under the constitution the following warmaking powers are given to the congress, not the president:


"To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

To provide and maintain a Navy;

To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;"

so, even if we pretend that the federalist papers are themselves Law, your quote in no way justifies the powers of espionage assumed by the president. next time you flip through your constitution you might also note where it says only congress can suspend habeus coprpus.

12 citizengnat-
Federalist #23 discusses the proper duties and restrictions of a central gov't in undertaking a defense of the states. It was not meant to define exactly which part of the federal government should properly oversee each responsibility. I was not suggesting that fed #23 allowed the president to perform warrantless wiretaps. It is clear, however, that Hamilton believed the federal government cannot be expected to abide by "constitutional shackles" where the defense of the nation is concerned.
Whether Bush overstepped the authority granted him by the AUMF of congress is a political rather than a legal judgement.
Lately the cliche "The Constitution is not a suicide pact" has been thrown around a lot; until I read the comments to Taylor's I thought it was a cliche with which no intelligent person could disagree.

13 Well, Hamilton was a dick.

allowing for the sake of argument that there is no right enumerated in the constitution not subject to withdrawl by the federal government, there is still good reason to maintain the basic checks and balances, particularly the seperate competancies of the different branches of government. Surely the most dangerous option for our liberties would be to put them in the hands of our one-headed executive branch?

"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

-Benjamin Franklin

14 Let's see you start by calling Hamilton a dick and end by quoting Franklin. A classic example of belittle anyone you don't happen to agree with. Not the strongest way to begin an argument. You should try something like "Hamilton is wrong" and then proceed to spell out why. Otherwise people might not take you seriously.

I'm not sure what right it is you are referring to having been taken away by the NSA intelligence gathering program. If you are referring to the forth amendment I would suggest reading it again - someone quoted it a few comments up. Then ask the question if someone in this country is on one end of an international call to a known terrorist would monitoring that call be unreasonable?

I also suggest to further deflate your feelings of dread of a Bush imperial presidency you check out the times latest reporting on the story. It's covered well at Captain's Quarters. In a nutshell when the DOJ had problems with the program and wouldn't sign off for another 45 days, they shut the program down and reworked it to satisfy the DOJ's concerns. This hardly seems like the actions of an administration eager to trample civil liberties.

15 I was attempting a little irony, but I guess it didn't work. We can all quote one founder or another to back up our modern political opinions. Hamilton was probably the most brazen in his distrust of democracy and advocacy of a strong central state. If you want to discuss further why I think he was a dick, that would be a different conversation.

You did not, however, adress my main point, that even if the federal government has such powers you have in no way demonstrated constitutional authority for the president to authorise warrentless wiretaps. Of course the NSA should listen to a call of the nature you are describing. I am not suggesting that any wiretapping program is unconstitutional, bad policy, or dangerous to liberty. The problem with this case is the presidents assertion that he doesn't need approval for his actions, even the minimal oversite of the FISA court. Also disturbing are reports of the NSA turning its vast data collection abilities against the U.S. population with no specific terrorist threat in mind. The fourth amendment states (and I know its already been quoted here but maybe you missed this part) "no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." This provision is there to prevent such fishing expiditions and abuses of executive power. I dodn't know that such data mining is occuring, but I do know it was proposed under the now defunct Total Information Awareness project. What, under the presidents current veiw of his authority, would prevent such a program from proceeding in secret?

16 Warrantless searches are not a rare thing in this country. My guess would be they number at least in the high hundreds if not thousands a day. My read is that the president probably at least has the authority equivalent to that of a traffic cop.

I don't know that widespread data mining is occurring either, and if it were, that would be an entirely different issue. Certainly important enough to even come before a discussion on which is our favorite founding father! As for what would prevent any president from attempting such a thing, that would come down to the judgement of the person in the office and whether or not they think they can and should get away with it. So in the end what would prevent it is who we decide to put in office.

Some of the stuff I have read on this sounds like it was copied and posted out of the script of Enemy of the State. I don't see any reason to add wild speculation and conjecture to an issue already fraught with error misunderstanding and hyberbole.

17 Well, we stirred up a nice debate here. Steve, you made an excellent point about the word "unreasonable" in the 4th Amendment. I agree.

The bottom line here for me is that we need to remain a nation of Laws, not a nation of "men". Otherwise we slide down the slippery slope to mobocracy. At this point, we are getting pretty darned close. The news media has everyone so afraid of another terrorist attack that we are not thinking clearly about our future. Once we give the gov't certain powers, it is extremely difficult to get them back.

The letter of the law has to be followed by everyone, including the President and Congress. Otherwise, why bother having any laws at all? Just let everyone make it up as they go along according to the whims and fears of the mob.

9-11 represented a massive failure of our intelligence community. A lack of communication between intelligence agencies, due to a new policy first implemented by the Clinton administration was one of the primary contributors to this tragedy. And how about enforcing those VISAs? This was a management problem, not a problem with the federal gov't being too small.

There is no question that we need to be vigilant of terrorist threats in America. My question is: Do we try to kill a fly on our friend's forehead with a sledgehammer? The mammoth and still growing national security state is not the answer. It is bankrupting our nation and debasing our currency. What we need is more decentralized security. When Reid tried to blow up that plane with a shoe bomb, the passengers kicked his butt and stopped him. When Bush refused to protect our southern borders, the Minutemen stepped in. We have all become more vigilant as a result of these events. We, as citizens who derive our rights from our creator, (not the government) have to show that we are responsible and capable enough to do our part to protect our nation. It's not that difficult to notice a man or group of men of Arab decent acting suspiciously. We just need to feds to properly enforce laws already in place long before 9-11.

The feds had plenty of anti-terrorism tools before 9-11. They just screwed up.

18 And with all that said... Happy New Year, Steve!

19 Stephen, you statist whore, you. I hate you for collaborating in the increased erosion of our freedoms. The enemy sleeps well knowing that you and many others like you are out there.

20 I don't approve of warrentless serches when the cops are the ones performing them either. However, in those type of situations the suspect usually gives some sort of consent (often because they don't know they can refuse.) At least they know they are being serched.

When the President commits a crime, which you seem to be admitting has occured, don't you think it is, you know, a bigger deal than a policeman abusing his power at a traffic stop?

21 Give Me Liberty,

You are right, there has been an erosion of our freedoms. With No Child Left Behind the federal government has taken over greater control of education. With Medicare Prescription Drug coverage the government has taken greater control of our income. With McCain/Fiengold the government had wiped out a good deal of our freedom of speech. With the Kelo decision the government has destroyed our right to property.

But I am sure you are not in the least interested in anything I might have written about them. You would rather just spout baseless insults arising from your hysterical misunderstanding of the issue at hand.

22 Citizengant,

I don't believe I ever gave any indication that I think a crime has been committed. If I had it is either a case of not expressing myself clearly or tour misunderstanding - or both.

You may not like warrantless searches but the fact remains that they are legal and have been held to be constitutional if they are not "unreasonable."

23 Wayne,

Yes it is quite a debate. You should check out the comment thread at Hit and Run also.

I don't think the media deserves all of the credit for people being afraid of another terrorist attack. I think the lion's share of that belongs with the terrorists. How many times since December 01 have any major media outlets print or Broadcast images from 9/11.

I fully agree that we should be a notion of laws and that the federal government has been working hard to eliminate that restraint for decades. It certainly hasn't helped individuals that the Supreme Court has been part of the effort since Roosevelt.

What I don't see in this circumstance is any clear evidence that the law has been broken. What evidence that is available seems to point to an effort to work within the limits of the law - albeit stretching those limits as far as they can go.

Much of what you wrote about the laws being in place before 9/11 is no doubt true. A good deal of what is written into the Patriot Act for example is redundant to methods already employed in organized crime investigations. What the Patriot act did was to make those law enforcement tools available in a military/intelligence context. Otherwise the government is forced to treat terrorists as criminals rather than an enemy. Treating terrorism as a crime and not an act of war is another mistake from the past we need to learn from.

Actions like the passengers of Flight 93 and the passengers who took down the shoe bomber as well the Minutemen are indeed commendable. But if we are to become a nation of laws again we need Minutemen at the ballot box electing representation that will address these issues.

A number of people have put forth the argument that one may not have a problem with Bush having the power to do what he has done but how would they feel about hillary having it. If you happen to believe that the president did not exceed his authority in this case and you worry about what Mrs Clinton would do, then it is incumbent on you to work very hard to make sure we never have to find out.

24 Steve,

Well said.

Just keep in mind that just because we don't know about something, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. The power to root out terrorists can be twisted and stilted to be used against "Enemies of the State". The cat is out of the bag.

Even with the Internet at our disposal, there are so many things we don't know about.

I my view, the centralization of most government activities is a bad idea. It is a plank from the Communist Manifesto.

25 I my view, the centralization of most government activities is a bad idea. It is a plank from the Communist manifesto.
The major points of Federalism revolve around which powers are best left to the states and the People and which need to be centralized. While most government is best kept as local as possible, the whole point of the Federalist movement that resulted in our Constitution was that some powers are, in fact, best granted to a stronger federal government.
I believe the preamble points out just which ones they are: "[to] establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and to secure the blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity...".

While our impulse should always be to shy away from centralizing any aditional powers, the clear and present danger of terrorist networks, imho, requires that more coordination among the several layers of government, and within the departments of each level, exist now and in the foreseeable future than existed prior to 9/11.

If a cursory data mining sweep can lead to information that can thwart a major terror attack, then I have no problem with that data being mined so long as non-relevent data is not kept or stored or poured over in any way that it would have been prior to the current NSA initiatives.

In other words, the police may enter your home with a warrant to cease a violant criminal and his gun(s) as evidence, but may not then, on the spot, decide to search for evidence of, say, fire code violations by taking your smoke detectors apart. If the NSA happens to come across some evidence dealing with your family reunion at Block Island, they may not examine it further to try and determine the likelihood of any underage drinking going on. Just an example -- lame, I know.

Anywho, restrictions still apply even though the methods have been updated. A wiretap granted specifically for listening to an organized crime boss regarding numbers racketeering may not be used to gather info on unpaid parking tickets. NAy info that is "gathered" illegally is inadmissable in a court of law.

26 Spork,

I'm not sure it would work that way. To start from your example:

If the police enter into your home to arrest a violent criminal and cease his weapons they would most likely conduct a search for weapons. If that search turned up other criminal activity, say a big bag of pot, I'm fairly sure that evidence would be allowable.

If the search was legitimate whatever they found would be admissible.

Beyond that, I agree with your assessment of data mining. And for purely practical reasons that is likely how it works. The capacity needed store everything would be staggering. I would theorize that the process works like a filter and that the vast majority of communications would pass right through and probably a good portion of what got caught and looked at is probably discarded as well.

That said - there is no evidence nor has there been any allegation of a vast general data mining program. My understanding is that when a subject is identified they tap that person then tap the people that person calls et. Now I doubt if a person along that chain calls and orders Dominoes they are going to tap Dominoes' phones.

The people giving into hysteria about this need to keep in mind that storage capacity and the resources to analyze information are finite. The program was set up with a specific goal of catching terrorists. And no doubt that goal governs the decision making about what gets monitored and what gets kept and examined.

27 I don't know who the bigger dorks are...Stephen for hitting the refresh button every 20 seconds or the rest of us for reading blogs and pretending they're meaningful.

28 as to whether a crime was committed, i believe the president has admitted that at times he has bipassed FISA. his defenses for this action that i know of are 1 that he has broken no laws by doing this (which is blatantly false) 2 that he needed to do this to act in a timely manner (which is blatantly false- the warrants can be obtained up to 72 hours after surveillance has started) and 3 that congress gave him this power when they gave him the power to invade afghanistan (which is also blatantly false)

john dean (the white house counsel under nixon) has stated that bush is the first president to admit to an impeachable offense.

i dont think this scandal is the worst thing bush has done by far, but it is definitely the most clearly unconstitutional and impeachable.

bushs benefit of the doubt has been used up a long time ago

29 and if its not illegal (as you seem to be suggesting), why is there a FISA court at all?

30 There are so many people who seem to be willing to assert that the President is guilty of a crime without providing the even the slimmest shred of any sort of evidence.

What follows is the full text of a recent Wall Street Journal Editorial that does contain things like facts and is written with an understanding of the law.

FISA vs. the Constitution
Congress can't usurp the president's power to spy on America's enemies.

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.

Mr. Turner, co-founder of the Center for National Security Law at the University of Virginia School of Law, served as counsel to the President's Intelligence Oversight Board, 1982-84.

31 Here's an article to consider on the subject:

http://www.fmnn.com/Analysis/157/3346/2006-01-03.asp?wid=157&nid=3346

32 i dont think the wall street journal is a very reliable source. they will apologize for anything; i have read articles in favor of torture for example. apart from this i find several things i disagree with in your lengthy post. first of all-

"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."

a couple quick points-
the FISA court is a "rubber stamp" as they have barely refused any requests; it is rediculous to assert that FISA would not allow monitoring of terrorists(the scary question has been asked- who is bush spying on that he needs to ignore FISA?).

the pentagon has been spying on anti-war protestors and quakers, and has listed them as "credible threats".

the governments view of "terrorism" is incredibly broad and includes a multitude of domestic peaceful organizations including environmentalists etc.

THERE IS NO OVERSIGHT WHATSOEVER

you have to be delusional to give bush this much benefit of the doubt after he has repeatedly lied to you. i do not know for a fact that they have been spying on democratic leadership, for example, but the nsa has spied on UN officials.

what makes you think the bush administration, with their incredible emphasis on secrecy and loyalty, has more scruples than nixon's? (i tend to assume things are worse than we know about, and what we know about is really damn bad)

everything you see/hear about the bush administration should make you at the very least suspicious.

and also i am still puzzled-why does FISA exists at all?