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Wiretaps moved to Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court
In what I consider another encouraging step in the right direction link
The Justice Department announced today that the National Security Agency’s controversial warrantless surveillance program has been placed under the authority of a secret surveillance court, marking an abrupt change in approach by the Bush administration after more than a year of heated debate…
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9 Responses to “Wiretaps moved to Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court”
Pretty convenient timing wouldn’t you say?
Doesn’t Gonzales testify to congress tomorrow?
The house of cards is wobbling, and a nor’easter is headed for Pennsylvania Ave.
Soooooooo, after all of the rhetoric, these cases are going back to the FISA court. Why didn’t they just say they would work with the court two years ago, instead of trying to appear like the president was above the law? Misplaced arrogance that really hurt the administration’s cause in the long run.
Why didn’t they just say they would work with the court two years ago
Because two years ago the program was still secret, and still producing results because it had yet to be splashed all over the front page of the New York Times?
Duh.
Tully,
I thought FISA processes were classified?
I wasn’t referring to FISA, Paul, but to the TSP. Previously FISC had refused to amend their procedures to meet the needs of modern terrorist surveillance, so the admin stepped around FISC using war powers. Now apparently the FISC and the admin have reached an agreement on procedural streamlining, so a step-around is no longer required.
Or maybe outing the program rendered it useless, and there was no reason to not put it under FISC anymore. More likely a bit of both. We’ll likely not get the real story until around the time we have grandkids.
Oh, and FISA processes and procedures aren’t classified, only actual operations. The processes and procedures, the “forms,” are set by published statute. It’s not until you hit actual cases that classification applies.
Really? Where did you hear this?
And what war powers? Article 2?
OK- Tully- a year ago then. They seemed to go out of their way to court controversy -Pardon my pun. As with so many things with the Bush administration, it could have and should have been handled so much better. After all, they caved in to the court system in the end, so they must have known all along their argument was weak.