Fighting Back on FISA
Liberals Don't Like the Law That's Keeping America Safe
By Bluey Posted in War — Comments (18) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
The Bush Administration and congressional Republicans have watched liberals distort and misconstrue the modifications made to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) last week. They've seen enough and aren't going to take it anymore.
In the past few days, conservatives have begun to fight back against what they perceive as a deliberate attempt by liberals to engage in scare tactics and invoke the threat of "Big Brother." Much of the activity has taken place on liberal blogs, as noted by Dean Barnett, the New York Times and The Hill. But it's also being fueled by the ACLU and other civil-liberties groups.
The White House took the first step to rebut the distortions when it released a fact sheet about the Protect America Act, the temporary FISA fix that Congress passed on August 4. That law expires in six months.
Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R.-Mich.), ranking member on the Intelligence Committee, has led the charge in Congress. He wrote a scathing letter to the New York Times, chastising the paper for resorting to "scare tactics" that "knowingly and willfully" misrepresent the law. (Full text of the four-page letter is available here.) Hoekstra followed up the letter with an op-ed in the Washington Times calling out Democrats for their short-sighted views.
The reforms passed by Congress were designed to update FISA with current technology, not to expand it beyond its original intent. At stake is the ability of the U.S. intelligence community to monitor foreign targets outside the United States. The law will get another review when Congress returns from its August recess, leaving open the possibility that Democrats could weaken it. Liberals are fully engaged on this fight, which is why conservatives can't ignore it.
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If the Republicans really want to help the nation, then submit a bill to make the FISA provisions permanent. Why is something good for six months but bad for six years.
Redstate, organize the blogosphere. Have each of your readers contact their Congresspersons, Senators, and demand the the provisions become permanent.
Then let's see how the Blue Dogs do. Want to fight terror? It's gonna take more than six months.
If the Republicans really want to help the nation, then submit a bill to make the FISA provisions permanent. Why is something good for six months but bad for six years.
The Republicans were forced to agree to the six-month sunset provision in order to placate Democrats (and maybe some Republican squishes).
Like the Republicans tried to do, I would support a permanent or multiple-year authorization because national security has to trump campaign calculations. If however the Democrats force us to debate this all over again for the reauthorization next year, I like those politics just fine. Politically speaking, it would be even better if that results in just another six month's extension, so when that expires we have a high profile debate on the same issue between the Democratic and Republican Presidential nominees.
You would think that with Congress approving this "illegal spying on Americans" and democracy having certified through the rule of law this process of self preservation, the hate driven and scrofulous, [liberals ], would mute their irrational and self destructive babbling. Not so.
Law means nothing to them, self defense & protection mean nothing, lives that could be saved mean nothing.
Observe a class of people who stand before you in public, naked in their degeneracy and uncivilized emotional urges, the American Liberal.
"a man's admiration for absolute government is proportinate to the contempt he feels for those around him". Tocqueville
I can't see how the law as it is written gets around the 4th ammendemnt.
Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. Benjamin Franklin.
I never figured that essential liberty was making international phone calls to known terrorists! You learn something new every day!
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The CIA has better politicians than it has spies - Fred Thompson
I don't think Benjamin had the experience of seeing innocent Americans forced to jump to their deaths from a 100 story building.
Congress can say, and Bush can sign, a law that allows the violation of the 4 Amendment to the Constitution. That doesn't make it right. These FISA exceptions are a violation of the 4th Amendment. The Bush admin. can now listen in to your conversations with your children vacationing in Italy, with your business associate in London, or anyone else. Feel good?
Liberals, contrary to the ridiculous assertions on this website, love this country. We love its laws. We love the Constitution. And a Bush strong-arming of it is wrong. It's too bad that the AG's office and the Supremes are in his pocket, or these unconstitutional laws would be thrown out.
According to the plan I've seen (but can't quote from) the Cheney Shadow Government will continue uninterrupted after the '08 election. The new congress will pass further limits on your rights and the expanded Secret Service will arrest you based on this silly post. You will be sent to a secret prison in Peru.
And we will feel really good. Just the thought of you being forced to pose with panties on your head will bring joy to the world.
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CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.
Enemy combatants only need to conference in someone from the U.S. and the U.S. would be unable to wiretap foreign communications.
Imagine Nazi Germany in the context of modern technology.
Source of call: Nazi High Command
First connection: German embassy in Washington D.C.
Second connection: German General in the field.
ProudProgressive says that the U.S. military would need to get a warrant to monitor this call.
To quote a famous U.S. military officer in WWII when asked to surrender "Nuts"
"The Constitution is not a suicide pact"
--Abraham Lincoln
These FISA exceptions are a violation of the 4th Amendment. The Bush admin. can now listen in to your conversations with your children vacationing in Italy, with your business associate in London, or anyone else.
he rampant violations of our 4th amendment protection against unreasonable search are even worse than Proud Progressive realizes. Even before the ink was dry on the 4th Amendment's ratification, the fascist conspiracy running our government has brazenly refused to apply it to activity crossing our borders.
For the last two centuries those Nazis have been pushing a piece of evil sophistry, where they call a flight or voyage from say Marseille to New York an "international flight/voyage", and then say that when it's an "international flight" they can ignore the 4th Amendment by searching you and your baggage with no warrant whatsoever! And if something's mailed from say Moscow to California, they claim the same illegal loophole calling it "international mail", and open private mail without a search warrant!
You may call this leftist moonbat fantasy, but I personally have received such so-called "international mail" that was opened by the American gestapo without any warrant. And the mail was already in the United States when they trampled on the 4th amendment.
This isn't new - during the Clinton administration the gestapo violated my 4th Amendment rights with the unconstitutional "international mail" loophole. Even if you elect a progressive Democrat who respects our rights, the American secret police keep violating our 4th amendment rights.
What is new is Bush's outrageous extension of the "international flight" and "international mail" violations of the 4th Amendment to a new concept he calls "international phone calls". In Bush's twisted logic, if a flight from Marseille to New York is an "international flight" that allows search without a warrant, that supposedly implies a phone call from Marseille to New York must be an "international phone call" that can be bugged without a warrant. Of course we all know this is BS, that a call from Marseille to New York is a domestic call that's protected by the 4th Amendment, just like a flight from Marseille to New York is a domestic flight, but the Bush crime family has a long habit of ignoring inconvenient facts like that.
(For those obsessed with details, I'll note that the FISA exceptions still impose more court scrutiny on calls that begin or end in the U.S. than it does on searches by Customs, but that would spoil the rant ;-)
Do something - ANYTHING - to take yourself out of the gene pool.
Or would you like to share with us exactly what you're so afraid of being found?
I think you may have missed the //snark// tag.
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CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.
"Liberals, contrary to the ridiculous assertions on this website, love this country. We love its laws. We love the Constitution. And a Bush strong-arming of it is wrong. It's too bad that the AG's office and the Supremes are in his pocket, or these unconstitutional laws would be thrown out."
You love yourselves, and you love power, and you don't give a crap about this country OR the constitution OR its laws. If this was your suck-buddy Bill Clinton's cause, you would have you head so far up his rectum you could check for polyps.
I am old enough to know what you "progressives" stand for. Nice try, but I am not buying it.
where a WH spokesman says, "Listen to this recording of a phone call between the heads of the ACLU and MoveOn where they plot planting of lies about FISA." ;-)
I noticed the NY Times seems to have violated its obnoxious style rule about acronyms. They use "A.C.L.U." but they also use "FISA" rather than "F.I.S.A." I find their sticking extra dots in all over the place is really annoying. I don't think anyone else does that.