ACLU to Sue Over FISA Bill
Posted on July 9, 2008
Today, in a blatant assault upon civil liberties and the right to privacy, the Senate passed an unconstitutional domestic spying bill that violates the Fourth Amendment and eliminates any meaningful role for judicial oversight of government surveillance. The FISA Amendments Act of 2008 was approved by a vote of 69 to 28 and is expected to be signed into law by President Bush shortly. This bill essentially legalizes the president’s unlawful warrantless wiretapping program revealed in December 2005 by the New York Times.
I’m glad they included the reminder of the New York Times act of treason, revealing specifics on a secret program and informing our enemies of the tools we use against them. Of course the ACLU think this was a courageous act of “whistle blowing” and in their twisted world, an act of patriotism. In the real world it was an a cowardly act of treason.
Once again, Congress blinked and succumbed to the president’s fear-mongering. With today’s vote, the government has been given a green light to expand its power to spy on Americans and run roughshod over the Constitution,” said Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union. “This legislation will give the government unfettered and unchecked access to innocent Americans’ international communications without a warrant. This is not only unconstitutional, but absolutely un-American.”
Of course the ACLU have made up all these accusations out of thin air, and can’t win any lawsuit they have launched against this program. They can’t provide any evidence to prove their claims and have been smacked down numerous times because they have absolutely no standing. Of course they have repeated their own lies so many times they believe them to be true now. That is what happens to the paranoid. The program is not designed to spy on innocent Americans, and the government would have no interest in those conversations anyway. The program is designed to listen to international phone calls that flagged to known terrorists and their financers. The program is designed to protect innocent Americans.
The bill further trivializes court review by authorizing the government to continue a surveillance program even after the government’s general spying procedures are found insufficient or unconstitutional by the FISC. The government has the authority to wiretap through the entire appeals process, and then keep and use whatever information was gathered in the meantime. A provision touted as a major “concession” by proponents of the bill calls for investigations by the inspectors general of four agencies overseeing spying activities. But members of Congress who do not sit on the Judiciary or Intelligence committees will not be guaranteed access to the agencies’ reports.
Any information obtained on terrorists should be used, and when compromising…one must make concessions.
The bill essentially grants absolute retroactive immunity to telecommunication companies that facilitated the president’s warrantless wiretapping program over the last seven years by ensuring the dismissal of court cases pending against those companies. The test for the companies’ right to immunity is not whether the government certifications they acted on were actually legal – only whether they were issued. Because it is public knowledge that certifications were issued, all of the pending cases will be summarily dismissed. This means Americans may never learn the truth about what the companies and the government did with our private communications.
Blah, blah, blah. These telecom companies cooperated with the government and provided protection and prevention of terrorist attacks on many innocent Americans. What they did was their patriotic duty, and they should be seen as heroes, not criminals. Of course the ACLU are disappointed they can’t sue these rich companies to line their own pockets.
Still…the ACLU remain steadfast:
In advance of the president’s signature, the ACLU announced its plan to challenge the new law in court.
“This fight is not over. We intend to challenge this bill as soon as President Bush signs it into law,” said Jameel Jaffer, Director of the ACLU National Security Project. “The bill allows the warrantless and dragnet surveillance of Americans’ international telephone and email communications. It plainly violates the Fourth Amendment.”
Can’t wait to watch you guys get shot down again. Anyone know how we can sue the ACLU for continually thwarting the government’s efforts to protect us?
Jeff G at Protein Wisdom with da funny:
Seems the ACLU is set to sue over this. Evidently, the FISA legislation must not have included provisions for “wiretapping” Christians. Because then maybe the ACLU might get on board…
» Filed Under 1st Amendment, ACLU, News
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21 Responses to “ACLU to Sue Over FISA Bill”
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They are so cute when they get angry.
I’m glad to see the ACLU is taking this news so well…I was afraid they’d REALLY get upset.
/snark-OFF!
1st, I’d like to see the ACLU come up with an actual plaintiff that has been damaged. I think a judge is kinda going to require that.
2nd, whichever carrier supplies service to the ACLU should cut it off
How can any self-respecting, patriotic American (the plaintiffs) think that letting the government have access to our personal communications is a good idea? Don’t you remember Watergate? FISA was passed to prevent the executive from abusing wiretapping privileges again, and now it’s been gutted, and you’re pettily mocking the ACLU about it. Never mind the fact that the lawsuit will succeed, because the Fourth Amendment pretty clearly protects Americans from search and seizure without judicial oversight.
Listening in on international communications with the enemy is neither search nor does it seize anything.
Sorry Jay, that defense has already been tried and overturned in Katz vs. United States (1967) when the Supreme Court ruled that the 4th Amendment is intended to protect individual privacy. Also, a year later Congress passed Title III of the “Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act” which required a warrant for wiretapping. There are still laws in America, and I submit that the truly patriotic act is to do your utmost to make sure they are followed by every citizen, including you, me, and George W Bush.
The federal government has not only a right but a duty to protect the citizens of this country. To that end listening to any call that either originates or terminates overseas or is connected to a person of interest should not only be legal and allowed but actively demanded by anyone of any sense.
The fact that the ACLU and the entire American Left (and people such as Phil) throw a fit about it only proves they are not thinking clearly or do not have the best interests of Americans at heart.
So Phil, so you hate America or are you just having trouble coming to grips with the fact that there are folks out there that wanna kill us?
In the United States, the oath of office for the President of the United States is specified in the U.S. Constitution (Article II, Section 1):
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
The oath may be sworn or affirmed. Although not present in the text of the Constitution, it has become a standard practice for modern presidents to add “so help me God” at the end of the oath.
The Constitution specifies in Article VI, clause 3:
“The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”
For other officials, including members of Congress, it specifies they “shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation to support this constitution.” At the start of each new U.S. Congress, in January of every odd-numbered year, those newly elected or re-elected Congressmen - the entire House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate - must recite an oath:
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.[9]
This oath is also taken by the Vice President, members of the Cabinet, and all other civil and military officers and federal employees other than the President. While the oath-taking dates back to the First Congress in 1789, the current oath is a product of the 1860s, drafted by Civil War-era members of Congress intent on ensnaring traitors.
In 1789, the First United States Congress had reworked the constitutional requirement into a simple fourteen-word oath: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support the Constitution of the United States.” It also passed the Judiciary Act of 1789, which established an additional oath taken by Supreme Court justices and district court judges:
I do solemnly swear (or affirm), that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent on me, according to the best of my abilities and understanding, agreeably to the Constitution, and laws of the United States. So help me God.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oath_of_office
kender, you flat-out don’t know what it means to be an American.
kender, I know that you are fully aware that I do neither of those things. I’m an proud American who is concerned about the consolidation of power in the executive branch in recent years. Unlike the weak-minded liberals you’re probably used to dealing with, I’m a dyed-in-the-wool libertarian patriot who would gladly die for this country and the freedoms we have.
And to answer your argument, I fully support the government’s right to monitor and intercept communications with foreign persons of interest. This is an essential tool in the prevention of terrorist attacks. I am, however, highly skeptical that this will be the only use of the expanded FISA. The elimination of meaningful oversight from a court of law is an unnecessary and dangerous step towards surveillance of normal citizens whose only crime is mistrust of the government. It’s happened before, during the rise of totalitarian governments all around the world. It will not happen to my country.
andrew, I am well aware of what it MEANS to be an American. I am also well aware that there are people conspiring to attack this country. If the government wants to listen in to calls that originate or terminate outside of this country then by God (or whatever deity you wish to use) they have the right to do so.
Anything that goes over our borders, be it phone calls, emails messages or packages is open season for our government to inspect, read or listen to and just because you don’t agree with it doesn’t mean it’s not so.
The borders, and all that pass over, under or through them are under and subject to the jurisdiction of the federal government of the united states.
Phil, its the judicial branch you should be worried about. They were just one vote away from taking your last defense away.
good for you phil….but stopping our government from listening to whom they wish is not going to happen. We already are getting a totalitarian government, and it’s due to the left and the socialists in the democratic party.
That’s not the issue at hand. We’re talking about the FISA amendment and how the ACLU is on the correct side of the fight. You’re saying that we should roll over and let our rights be raped because it’s inevitable? The Democrats, dumb and disorganized as they are, have become the party of civil liberties since GW took office, and that’s shocked a lot of people. The real question is why the “conservatives” haven’t been making more noise about the Reagan legacy they’re trashing.
Just wanted to thank you, Jay, and everyone, for all the work you do.
I think the Troung (sp?) holds that communications to and from foreign groups can be monitored without violating the 4th Amendment as long as the monitoring is for intelligence gathering and not a criminal prosecution.
Given that the right to privacy is implied rather than express (although i wholeheartedly agree that such a right should be implied albeit without as much vigor as those that are expressed), I really don’t see how the monitoring of a call to someone on a terrorist watch list or someone that is reasonably believed to have terrorist connections is in violation of the Bill of Rights. However, from what I hear, FISA is much broader than this.
Anyone actually read the statute? I am probably not smart enough to digest the legalease.
what is shocking, phil, is that the democrats so easily tie the hands of our government as it relates to going after our enemies using whatever means necessary. The fact that the democrats give the government free rein on taxing our money and spending it on damn near useless social programs is almost as large a problem as stopping the feds from going after terrorists.
What really galls me is folks such as yourself that would give our enemies almost free rein to plot attacks on us.
I know the old quote from Franklin about giving up liberty for security (I just know someone will toss that one in this fight soon enough) but let me give one that is even more apropos;
“A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the high duties of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to written law, would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the end to the means.”
Thomas Jefferson in a letter to John B. Colvin, 20th, Spet. 1810
“Those Who Sacrifice Liberty For Security Deserve Neither.” - Ben Franklin
told ya
kender, I’m sorry to have “galled” you, perhaps there’s some over-the-counter medication for that nowadays. Requiring a warrant to wiretap American citizens is not “[giving] our enemies almost free rein to plot attacks on us”. It is a necessary safeguard against abuse, and one that is guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States that every Congressman and President swears to defend. The coming court battle over the amended FISA will bear that out, and your right to privacy will be protected yet again by the same ACLU you wish to stop.
Phil, I am indeed taking meds for that condition. I am on Tryphorgettin in an attempt get over the left’s incessant socialist attacks, Fukitol to counter the constant political activism I am suffering from, and Sarcasma to silence that little inner voice that causes me to wonder out loud if my fellow citizens are really so paranoid and gullible.
The ACLU, just to refresh your memory, complained about wiretapping by the government because, as they said, it was hindering them in speaking with overseas clients.
Just what “clients” the AMERICAN civil liberties union would have overseas is beyond me and why they would be worried that our government would be listening in when we all know that the government is chasing terrorists and the ACLU would never have anything to do with terrorists, ever, just boggles my mind.
Oh wait, wasn’t it the ACLU in conjunction with Lynne Stewart that defended the Blind Sheik for the first world trade center bombing? What happened to that lady?
OH YEAH……SHE WENT TO JAIL FOR AIDING A TERRORIST!!!!
And the ACLU tried to keep her out saying she was just “defending her client.”
Damn straight I wanna stop the aclu (hence the website name (I’m a founding member BTW) because if we don’t there won’t be a country to save.