Who is right now??

Question

Well the dems must be having a fit now. A Federal judge has ruled Gw can use the warrentless wiretaps. It is part of the Security for this country. As far as I am concerned he can listen to my phone conversations all day & see all the garbage calls I get. I have nothing to hide. If it will make me & my family safer then be my guest.. If you have nothing to hide , WHY are YOU afraid??

Dangerous; I fought in Vietnam & Gulf 1 I gave 22 years of my life for this great land. I AM NO COWARD//

Answer 1

Alittle bit of fear and hatred going on here. The taps are for only people with ties to terrorism. The Government does not and will not tap your phone lines without cause. Also, the Fizer court reviews all taps now since the first of the year. Un warranted taps are still not allowed. Our country needs all avenues to protect us against the world wide terror to destroy free people/

Answer 2

The purpose of this law was to protect the American people by regulating government eavesdropping. Like many laws limiting the power of government, it relies on checks and balances: one branch of the government watching the other. The law established a secret court, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), and empowered it to approve national-security-related eavesdropping warrants. The Justice Department can request FISA warrants to monitor foreign communications as well as communications by American citizens, provided that they meet certain minimal criteria.

The FISC issued about 500 FISA warrants per year from 1979 through 1995, and has slowly increased subsequently -- 1,758 were issued in 2004. The process is designed for speed and even has provisions where the Justice Department can wiretap first and ask for permission later. In all that time, only four warrant requests were ever rejected: all in 2003. (We don't know any details, of course, as the court proceedings are secret.)

FISA warrants are carried out by the FBI, but in the days immediately after the terrorist attacks, there was a widespread perception in Washington that the FBI wasn't up to dealing with these new threats -- they couldn't uncover plots in a timely manner. So instead the Bush administration turned to the NSA. They had the tools, the expertise, the experience, and so they were given the mission.

The NSA's ability to eavesdrop on communications is exemplified by a technological capability called Echelon. Echelon is the world's largest information "vacuum cleaner," sucking up a staggering amount of voice, fax, and data communications -- satellite, microwave, fiber-optic, cellular and everything else -- from all over the world: an estimated 3 billion communications per day. These communications are then processed through sophisticated data-mining technologies, which look for simple phrases like "assassinate the president" as well as more complicated communications patterns.

Supposedly Echelon only covers communications outside of the United States. Although there is no evidence that the Bush administration has employed Echelon to monitor communications to and from the U.S., this surveillance capability is probably exactly what the president wanted and may explain why the administration sought to bypass the FISA process of acquiring a warrant for searches.

Perhaps the NSA just didn't have any experience submitting FISA warrants, so Bush unilaterally waived that requirement. And perhaps Bush thought FISA was a hindrance -- in 2002 there was a widespread but false believe that the FISC got in the way of the investigation of Zacarias Moussaoui (the presumed "20th hijacker") -- and bypassed the court for that reason.

Most likely, Bush wanted a whole new surveillance paradigm. You can think of the FBI's capabilities as "retail surveillance": It eavesdrops on a particular person or phone. The NSA, on the other hand, conducts "wholesale surveillance." It, or more exactly its computers, listens to everything. An example might be to feed the computers every voice, fax, and e-mail communication looking for the name "Ayman al-Zawahiri.". This type of surveillance is more along the lines of Project Shamrock, and not legal under FISA. As Sen. Jay Rockefeller wrote in a secret memo after being briefed on the program, it raises "profound oversight issues."

It is also unclear whether Echelon-style eavesdropping would prevent terrorist attacks. In the months before 9/11, Echelon noticed considerable "chatter": bits of conversation suggesting some sort of imminent attack. But because much of the planning for 9/11 occurred face-to-face, analysts were unable to learn details.

The fundamental issue here is security, but it's not the security most people think of. James Madison famously said: "If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary." Terrorism is a serious risk to our nation, but an even greater threat is the centralization of American political power in the hands of any single branch of the government.

Over 200 years ago, the framers of the U.S. Constitution established an ingenious security device against tyrannical government: they divided government power among three different bodies. A carefully thought out system of checks and balances in the executive branch, the legislative branch, and the judicial branch, ensured that no single branch became too powerful.

After watching tyrannies rise and fall throughout Europe, this seemed like a prudent way to form a government. Courts monitor the actions of police. Congress passes laws that even the president must follow. Since 9/11, the United States has seen an enormous power grab by the executive branch. It's time we brought back the security system that's protected us from government for over 200 years.

Answer 3

I am afraid of the government taking our rights away.

The right to privacy.
The right to bear arms.
The right to free press.

I fought for that in the military.

Warrantless wiretaps are not an issue, they are not even needed any more, almost all phones in the USA go over the Internet or wireless or both.

A warrent has never been needed to listen to radio signals, and the US government has full access to everything that goes over the Internet.

There is no issue about warrentless wiretaps worth discussing. The only purpose for wasting time on such a meaningless issue, is to divert attention from real issues, such as the safety of our troops and all US citizens.

Answer 4

Its not that people are afraid of being spied on that they oppose this, however it is that the government has not right doing so that is why people are offended. It was so from the day the Constitution was written and it should stay so.

No the Federal judge didn't rule the GW can use the wiretaps but instead ruled that a civil suite could not be brought against a sitting President, two entirely different things.

Sure you trust GW with your safety and your freedoms but this will set a precedence which means every President in the future will have the same rights. Would you trust them to do the right thing, heck I don't trust this President.

People who sacrifice their freedom for safety are the biggest cowards of all, because you don't give your freedoms away, you fight for them.

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It is sad that the only thing that stood out to you was the word coward, not my narration of how important freedoms are. You being a person who fought for those rights for us, should appreciate it the most.

Answer 5

So because a federal judge ruled that the government can listen to citizens phone conversations, that makes it alright? Federal judges are all appointees therefore they all owe someone.

How about amendment 4 of the bill of rights? Unlawful search and seizure? I guess that has no bearing on any of this? The government cannot just intrude into my life whenever they feel like it.

Why am I afraid? I am afraid of the government overstepping their bounds on this one. What I do in my home and who I talk to is my business not theirs. I do not live my life in so much fear that I need the government to protect me and am willing to give up my rights to have a sense of security. Maybe that is how you want to live your life.

Answer 6

The federal judge was wrong. I have nothing to hide. I am not afraid. Warrantless wire taps have nothing to do with making me and my family safer, however; they are just part of a presidential power grab which ultimately works to the disadvantage of us all. Why don't YOU stop being afraid and start fighting to keep our democracy safe from those within our nation who are trying to diminish it?.
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The wiretaps, true, are supposed to be only for people with ties to terror; but as they are warrantless, there is no judicial oversight, we are being asked to trust the executive alone. In my experience, in our history, NO executive, republican or democrat, can be trusted with any sort of unchecked power; our founding fathers knew this, that is why they set up a three part goverment with checks and balances. The issue is not the wiretaps, it is that they are warrantless, without any sort of oversight.

Answer 7

Why be afraid? Because sometimes political beliefs are used to put people in jail - even to ruin lives. And if you think that would never happen think again - remember the "honorable" Senator Joseph McCarthy? He and his cronies ruined people's lives - sometimes just for sport, which is disgusting. He was right about their being spies in the state department, but he was clueless about who they were, and during the cold war what did they expect? We had spies in the Soviet Union too.

And as far as listening in to my phone calls I don't care either - I just think they should be listening to the phone calls made by members of Al Queda instead - all they are going to find out about me is that my private life is not very exciting.

Answer 8

It seems we are going back to the day of U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy, when thousands of innocent Americans where hunted for paranoid government people.

"Why are you afraid?" That's what the Nazis said to the Jews before burning or gasing them.

Answer 9

"If you have nothing to hide, why are you afraid?"

Spoken like a true fascist. Why don't we just build our houses out of clear glass so the police can drive by and see what we're doing at all times? Why don't we install government cameras in every home in the US so that we can be monitored 24 hours a day? Why don't we have the government approve our reading lists just to make sure that we're not buying or checking out any books of a questionable nature? After all, if you're doing nothing wrong, then why are you afraid, right?

Come on, do you REALLY believe that law-abiding citizens should be treated as common criminals? Hell, we're not even being treated as common criminals if we can be spied without just cause.

Answer 10

It really is astounding that kind of thinking. You have nothing to hide, either do I. However I don't want my government to be able to do anything they want in the name of protecting me. Eroding our civil rights and civil liberties isn't the way I want things done in America. If we keep allowing these kinds of things, pretty soon we'll have the Gestapo looking over our shoulders. What was the Vice President hiding in his secret energy meetings? Do you have a problem with that or is it OK? We now have the most secretive administration in our history, yet they want to spy on us. I think something is wrong with that picture. So should you.