Warrantless Wiretaps

[Trollbait]

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Obama_fol ... _0406.html

Wants case against NSA dismissed
President Barack Obama invoked "state secrets" to prevent a court from reviewing the legality of the National Security Agency's warantless wiretapping program, moving late Friday to have a lawsuit that challenged the program dismissed.

The move -- which holds that information surrounding the massive eavesdropping program should be kept from the public because of its sensitivity -- follows an earlier decision in March to block handover of documents relating to the Bush Administration's decision to spy on a charity. The arguments also mirror the Bush Administration's efforts to dismiss an earlier suit against AT&T.

The decision Friday involves a lawsuit filed by the civil liberties group Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is suing the NSA for the wiretapping program. The agency monitored the telephone calls and emails of thousands of people within the United States without a court's approval in an effort to thwart terrorist attacks.

In attempting to block a San Fransisco court from reviewing documents relating to the NSA program, the Obama Administration is also protecting other individuals named as defendants in the suit: Vice President Dick Cheney, former Cheney chief of staff David Addington and former Bush Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

It also stands firmly behind the telecommunications giant AT&T. AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein revealed that the company allowed the agency to install network monitoring hardware to spy on American citizens.

The Director of National Intelligence, the Justice Department says, "has set forth a more than reasonable basis to conclude that harm to national security would result from the disclosure of whether the NSA has worked with any telecommunications carrier." AT&T is specifically mentioned. Public reports have fingered AT&T, Verizon, MCI and Sprint as participating in the government's eavesdropping efforts.

Acting Assistant Attorney General Michael Hertz penned the brief on behalf of the Obama Justice Department.

"The grounds for this motion [to dismiss] are that the Court lacks subject matter jurisdiction with respect to plaintiffs' statutory claims against the United States because Congress has not waived sovereign immunity, and summary judgment for the Government on all of plaintiffs' remaining claims against all parties... is required because information necessary to litigate plantiffs' claims is property subject to and excluded from use in this case by the state secrets privilege and related statutory privileges," Hertz and other trial attorneys for the Justice Department wrote.

The Justice Department also holds that the lawsuit can't proceed because of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Congress expanded the wiretapping program in 2008 with passage of amendments to the Act, which gave telecom companies immunity for past and future participation in the program and expanded the legal use of warrantless wiretaps from 48 hours to seven days. The revised Act also allowed the government to destroy records of previous taps.

Obama voted for the revised Act while a senator last year.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation fired off a scathing press release Monday.

"President Obama promised the American people a new era of transparency, accountability, and respect for civil liberties," said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston in the release. "But with the Obama Justice Department continuing the Bush administration's cover-up of the National Security Agency's dragnet surveillance of millions of Americans, and insisting that the much-publicized warrantless wiretapping program is still a 'secret' that cannot be reviewed by the courts, it feels like deja vu all over again."

[Harlowe]

Well that's disappointing. I wonder if the information being withheld has anything to do with it making the U.S. look really bad when we are trying to rebuild relationships internationally.

[Trollbait]

I find it extremely disappointing since transparency was a big reason I voted for Obama....not the only reason but a big one.

[Kulaf]

I fully support his decesion. It is the Presidents sole and exclusive Constitutional right to gather foreign intelligence.

[Trollbait]

I fully support his decesion. It is the Presidents sole and exclusive Constitutional right to gather foreign intelligence.

Please read the articles before posting...

It also stands firmly behind the telecommunications giant AT&T. AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein revealed that the company allowed the agency to install network monitoring hardware to spy on American citizens.

[Kulaf]

I fully support his decesion. It is the Presidents sole and exclusive Constitutional right to gather foreign intelligence.

Please read the articles before posting...

It also stands firmly behind the telecommunications giant AT&T. AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein revealed that the company allowed the agency to install network monitoring hardware to spy on American citizens.

Well physician heal thy self:

Under a presidential order signed in 2002, the intelligence agency has monitored the international telephone calls and international e-mail messages of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people inside the United States without warrants over the past three years in an effort to track possible "dirty numbers" linked to Al Qaeda, the officials said. The agency, they said, still seeks warrants to monitor entirely domestic communications.

We've only been debating the damn thing for the better part of 2 years......perhaps you should keep up rather than lecturing others.

[Trollbait]

The debate is far from settled.

If even one end of the convo is an American citizen then it is not foreign intelligence imo.

[Kulaf]

There are many things that are not settled about this. I am sure Partha or Lurker would be happy to take up the other side.

My contention has always been:

1) That FISA is unconstiutional

2) That since the intel is to be used to stop the futherance of a crime rather than in criminal prosecution that the courts would have no issue with this even though one party is within the US.

3) The President has the sole Constitutional authority to gather foreign intel and cannot be restricted by Congress.

[Lurker]

Obama has done a great job moving quickly to end the worst of Bush's criminal activity but his reluctance to investigate past actions by the Bush administration is disappointing.

=======

Kulaf,
Bush's illegal warrantless wiretapping program did not adhere to FISA and it wasn't limited to foreign intel, so your contentions about FISA are irrelevant. I have no desire to re-argue the issue. If you are ok with the Government spying on American citizens with no oversight as long as they tell you it's for your protection... more power to you.

[Ddrak]

Very disappointing.

Dd

[Lurker]

Greenwald thinks the Obama DOJ position is more extreme than Bush's. Not to say that Obama is breaking the law as flagrantly as Bush did, but that his rationale for blocking court review in this instance is more extreme.

[Partha]

2) That since the intel is to be used to stop the futherance of a crime rather than in criminal prosecution that the courts would have no issue with this even though one party is within the US.

Jon Burge approves of this post.