Another Reason Against Warrantless Wiretaps
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in The War On TerrorismWell, this has the potential to suck.
Looks like going around FISA could have immediate ramifications. Because now that it’s established we’ve done this, it gives potential terrorists and terrorist supporters a chance to escape prosecution. In other words, when Bush does things that are legally dubious, he could actually be hurting the WOT.
WASHINGTON, Dec. 27 – Defense lawyers in some of the country’s biggest terrorism cases say they plan to bring legal challenges to determine whether the National Security Agency used illegal wiretaps against several dozen Muslim men tied to Al Qaeda.The lawyers said in interviews that they wanted to learn whether the men were monitored by the agency and, if so, whether the government withheld critical information or misled judges and defense lawyers about how and why the men were singled out.
The expected legal challenges, in cases from Florida, Ohio, Oregon and Virginia, add another dimension to the growing controversy over the agency’s domestic surveillance program and could jeopardize some of the Bush administration’s most important courtroom victories in terror cases, legal analysts say.
And when I say “immediate ramifications”, I mean immediate:
The first challenge is likely to come in Florida, where lawyers for two men charged with Jose Padilla, who is jailed as an enemy combatant, plan to file a motion as early as next week to determine if the N.S.A. program was used to gain incriminating information on their clients and their suspected ties to Al Qaeda. Kenneth Swartz, one of the lawyers in the case, said, “I think they absolutely have an obligation to tell us” whether the agency was wiretapping the defendants. In a Virginia case, Edward B. MacMahon Jr., a lawyer for Ali al-Timimi, a Muslim scholar in Alexandria who is serving a life sentence for inciting his young followers to wage war against the United States overseas, said the government’s explanation of how it came to suspect Mr. Timimi of terrorism ties never added up in his view.
It’ll be interesting to see this play out. Will the government start talking about these wiretaps or will they continue to remain silent? If I had to predict, I’d say they’ll stonewall and leave it up to the judge to decide. That should be an interesting legal question for he or she to answer.
More on this story as it develops further. But in the meantime, read the article and tell me what you think.
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December 28th, 2005 at 6:36 am
Copy of letter to NY Times:
To the Editor,
Once again you run a front page article on the wire tap program without ever mentioning that every administration since Roosevelt has done the same thing without your self righteous indignation being displayed as it is now. Clinton’s own Justice Department officials acknowledge he did in a time of peace and it is perfectly legal. We are at war with people who took down the towers and will do it again. You and your Post buddies are now aiding in their defense. They are filing civil cases against the President? You must be so proud.
Sincerely,
William Smith
960 Greenview Dr.
Asheboro, NC 27205
336-369-0330
December 28th, 2005 at 7:23 am
Very intersting letter Bill.
Where did you get this info?
December 28th, 2005 at 9:36 am
It is more a question of where couldn’t he have found this information.
Recently, DoJ lawyers from the preceeding three adminstrations (Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Clinton) have made essentially the same case in national newspapers, as did the current five-page DoJ briefing issued this past week.
Every President from the time the telephone was invented up until Carter in 1978 had the unrestrained power to run warrantless wiretaps for national security reasons until FISA, and every adminstration since FISA was passed has said that it retains the inherent constitutional right to run warrantless searches without FISA involvement if they so desire.
That is why the charges of the NSA wiretaps being unconstitutional are so laughable. No court has ever even challeged the President’s ability to issue such an order, and Congress overstepped their bounds in issuing FISA in ‘78.
Bush is simply the first President that will be forced to take on the issue of FISA head-on.
FISA itself is likely to be struck down as unconstitutionally infringing upon the executive branch as a separation of powers issue, and the far left is going to bury themselves politically, cheering, as it were, for the terrorists, and against the nation in the eyes of John Q. Moderate.
With this knowledge in hand, you might begin to understand why Bush, while angry about the leaks and the NY Times revealing national security information, doesn’t appear to be at all worried about his future.
He’s going to come out of this vindicated, the Executive Branch will finally reassert a power it has always legally had, Congress will get the wrist-slap for its overbearing ego it deserves, terrorists will remain in jail (or dead), the NSA program of finding and identifying terrorists and keeping Americans safe will go on, and the MSM and the politcal far left, foaming at the mouth the entire time (to be sure) will render themselves even more irrelevant.
If it wasn’t so sad, it would be funny.
February 6th, 2006 at 8:52 pm
aye wuz sup mutha fucka?! iight den peace out fuckaz!!!
November 19th, 2007 at 3:01 pm
titcawycikiwe…
exciterekare…