Do people seriously think that the patriot act truly started unwarranted tapping?

Question

Just be happy Bush told you about it.

Answer 1

Your implication is that many others have engaged in illegal wiretapping in the past. That is very likely true.

Does that mean Bush is allowed to get away with breaking the law, after publicly admitting he broke the law, just because other people also broke the law before him?

By that excuse, once any murderer has been acquitted, anyone else is free to murder. Or should we do our best to hold everyone responsible for the laws they break?

Answer 2

Warrantless Wiretapping

The Supreme Court has recognized that electronic surveillance, such as wiretapping and eavesdropping, impinges on the privacy rights of individuals and organizations and is therefore subject to the Fourth Amendment's warrant clause. [65] President Clinton, however, has asked Congress to pass legislation that would give the Federal Bureau of Investigation the power to use "roving wiretaps" without a court order. [66] The president also fought for sweeping legislation that is forcing the telephone industry to make its network more easily accessible to law enforcement wiretaps. Those initiatives have led ACLU officials to describe the Clinton White House as "the most wiretap-friendly administration in history." [67]

It is unclear why the president made warrantless roving wiretaps a priority matter since judges routinely approve wiretap applications by federal prosecutors. According to a 1995 report by the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts, it had been years since a federal district court turned down a prosecutor's request for a wiretap order. [68] President Clinton is apparently seeking to free his administration from any potential judicial interference with its wiretapping plans. There is a problem, of course, with the power that the president desires: it is precisely the sort of unchecked power that the Fourth Amendment's warrant clause was designed to curb. As the Supreme Court noted in Katz v. United States (1967), the judicial procedure of antecedent justification before a neutral magistrate is a "constitutional precondition," not only to the search of a home, but also to eavesdropping on private conversations within the home. [69]

President Clinton also lobbied for and signed the Orwellian Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, which is forcing every telephone company in America to retrofit its phone lines and networks so that they will be more accessible to police wiretaps. [70] The cost of that makeover is expected to be several billion dollars. Any communications carrier that fails to meet the technology standards of the attorney general can be fined up to $10,000 per day. The passage of that law prompted Attorney General Reno to marvel at her newly acquired power: "I don't think J. Edgar Hoover would contemplate what we can do today." [71] That is unfortunately true. In the past, law enforcement had to rely on the goodwill and voluntary cooperation of the American people for investigative assistance. That tradition is giving way to a regime of coercive mandates. [72]

Answer 3

And what's worse; Back then at least it was ILLEGAL. If caught there was a chance (on paper anyway) the government could be prosecuted.

Now the Patriot Act has sanctioned it. (to all those who love this demonic piece of paper STILL think the Patriot Act is a good idea?)

Answer 4

Tapping goes back at least 50+ years. Bush wasn't the first by far and definitely won't be the last

Answer 5

Bush didn't. The New York Times did. Bush said he and his goons wern't going to spy on Americans--and his supporters believed him--or didn't care.

But--to answer your question--sure, breaking the law by using wiretaps, etc. without warrents isn't new. That doesn't make it okay. It is simply evidence that we as citizens must not simply assume our leaders are obeying the law. We as a nation failed to remember that lesson from our own history--sowe are condemned to repeat it.

Answer 6

Yeah no kidding the government has been doing this for decades.
Bush was just the only President dumb enough to get caught out for doing it.

Answer 7

Clinton got caught using warrantless wiretaps, so did Nixon, but everyone knew about that

Answer 8

No, but it made it legal.

A law passed to allow people to be murdered would be bad. Not because murders have not occurred already, but because it is wrong to make it legal.

Answer 9

so bush can just become a dictator and take all our rights away.

I guess in your logic we should be happy as long as he gives a heads up?

Answer 10

NO, but 145,000 violations has to be a new indoor record.