Is it needed?
Americans have given up much of their freedoms since 9/11 and it was done under the threat of another "terrorist" attack.
However, if George W Bush had acted on the August 6th memo that he had received before he went on vacation to Crawford, Texas , they could have probably stopped the attack of 9/11. But he told the person that gave him the memo, "OK, you've covered your ass". Then, a few weeks later, the planes hit the World Trade Center. It could have been stopped.
And it could have been stopped without the Homeland Security Dept, without eavesdropping on American citizens, without Americans giving up their 4th Amendment, if Bush had only done his job and acted on the memo of August 6th.
All this debate today is extraneous cover-your-ass excuses because we had a moron in the White House that did not do his job. There was no reason to continue his cover-up and there was no need for the people to give up their privacy rights.
= new reply since forum marked as read
But note this decision on FISA in the US Court of Appeals 2nd District
http://biotech.law.lsu.edu/cases/nat-sec/duggan.htm which not only upholds FISA but has this interesting nugget:
Prior to the enactment of FISA, virtually every court that had addressed the issue had concluded that the President had the inherent power to conduct warrantless electronic surveillance to collect foreign intelligence information, and that such surveillances constituted an exception to the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment. See United States v. Truong Dinh Hung, 629 F.2d 908, 912-14 (4th Cir. 1980), cert. denied, 454 U.S. 1144, 71 L. Ed. 2d 296, 102 S. Ct. 1004 (1982); United States v. Buck, 548 F.2d 871, 875 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 890, 54 L. Ed. 2d 175, 98 S. Ct. 263 (1977); United States v. Butenko, 494 F.2d 593, 605 (3d Cir.) (en banc), cert. denied, 419 U.S. 881, 42 L. Ed. 2d 121, 95 S. Ct. 147 (1974); United States v. Brown, 484 F.2d 418, 426 (5th Cir. 1973), cert. denied, 415 U.S. 960, 39 L. Ed. 2d 575, 94 S. Ct. 1490 (1974); but see Zweibon v. Mitchell, 170 U.S. App. D.C. 1, 516 F.2d 594, 633-651 (D.C. Cir. 1975), (dictum), cert. denied, 425 U.S. 944, 48 L. Ed. 2d 187, 96 S. Ct. 1685 (1976). The Supreme Court specifically declined to address this issue in United States v. United States District Court , 407 U.S. 297, 308, 321-22, 32 L. Ed. 2d 752, 92 S. Ct. 2125 (1972) (hereinafter referred to as " Keith "
, but it had made clear that the requirements of the Fourth Amendment may change when differing governmental interests are at stake, see Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 U.S. 523, 87 S. Ct. 1727, 18 L. Ed. 2d 930 (1967), and it observed in Keith that the governmental interests presented in national security investigations differ substantially from those presented in traditional criminal investigations. 407 U.S. at 321-324.
--------------------------------------------
If I understand this correctly, courts have always upheld warrant-less wiretapping if the government could prove the target was a foreign entity, person, or group or country.
I'm on board with you guys. I say repeal FISA and let's write an amendment that strengthens the 4th amendment protections to not include what seems to be allowed above.
