By the text of the US Constitution, the US government has no right to wiretap whatsoever.

[originalpckelly]

It is completely unconstitutional.

If a power is not clearly delegated in the US Constitution, that power is reserved to the states or the people.

In addition, the lack of an explicit prohibition of an action or power does not mean the federal government has that power by implication.

However, this whole paradigm of limited powers, limited by inclusion not exclusion, has been overturned and the 9th and 10th amendments wholly ignored.

That does not mean it would be impossible for the powers of the federal government to constitutionally expand, but those powers would have to be delegated to it in a constitutional amendment.

We do this because it is quite impossible to predict what powers may present themselves at a future time and it would be impossible to forbid every possible power in all situations. By including only the delegated powers, the model of our system is focused on limiting the power of our government.

This is no interpretation of the US Constitution, it is the direct text of the document:
"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
--9th Amendment to the US Constitution

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
--10th Amendment to the US Constitution

It strikes me as quite odd that people who proclaim their interest in a government of limited powers, would suggest that the President has unlimited powers in any area of policy, but especially the violation of our sacred liberty. These people are intellectually dishonest, or as I like to put it, full of shit.

Our government assumed the power of wiretapping without an amendment to the US Constitution to include it as a delegated power.

It was only in the '60s when a fella was making bets on pay phones, a Mr. Charles Katz, that the SCOTUS decided to make the government follow the 4th amendment and get a warrant for wiretapping.

But the thing is, silence in the US Constitution on an issue means that power hasn't been delegated, not that it's completely up for grabs and the government can do as it pleases. What a fucked nation we live in.

[bdamomma]

1. illegal wiretapping of Americans, and torture

what have we become?? this filthy administration needs to be run out of the country.

[flvegan]

2. How DARE you bring up the Constitution.

This country threw that short story under the bus some time ago.

Someday someone will come forward to re-establish it, and it'll stick.

[Warren Stupidity]

3. The 9th and 10th have been discarded for a long time.

The 4th is in the process of complete dismantlement under the bush regime and our compliant congress. The green light given to torture has rendered the 5th irrelevant as well, you will be subjected to physical and psychological torture until you confess to whatever it is they wist to have you confess to. Habeus Corpus has been tossed aside. International treaties governing the conduct of nations at war have been discarded as irrelevant.