President Acknowledges Approving Secretive Eavesdropping

The government can search you without a warrant when entering or leaving the country. The governement can search ships entering or leaving our boundries. Why can't they intercept communications coming in or out of the US from or to places outside the US?

If we were talking about communications that originate and end in the US, then the 4th amendment applies. In the case before us, it does not

you say "probably" because that's what you want to believe.

It may be that the President abused his power. After some further investigation, it may be proven that the President acted illegally and may be impeached.

I can accept that, if it is true. I agree we need more information.

What we do know as truth at this moment is the following:
Warrantless wiretaps are possible and legal.
A Right to Privacy is not all encompassing. Nor does it protect everyone from any possible form of government intrusion. There are many exceptions, and we either accept them or debate them. But the truth that government has many options to monitor, search, or watch does not make GW evil, a criminal, or subject to impeachment. If you have other issues with GW, that's great...but they aren't relevent to the legality of warrantless surveillance

Less "want" than I figure it's more likely. I've never seen the value in casually trusting the principals of politicians or lawyers.

However, we don't know yet whether or not the communications being monitored were strictly between our country and others. That is an assumption that you are making in favor of our leaders just as I would be more likely to assume the inverse.

I doubt we'll ever really know if anything illegal was going on because the silicon trail is probably being wiped as we speak.

Well, I can't argue with your conspiracy theory. That's an excellent way of putting the brakes on any discussion about the authority the president may or may not have.

I can't help you with your paranoia.

assumptions, jumping to conclusions, conspiracy, paranoia....

Cool, I love pissing contests.

Well, I can't argue with your faultless commitment to blindly trust the integrity of politicians who are in bed with everyone except you. Truly you are a master patriot.

Want to keep going?

Assumptions, which you've made as well, are different than conclusions. I see you'd like this to continue, so give me a moment to pore over your past diatribes before I return to insult your intelligence.

You're obviously a snarfmangling blogmonger who doesn't know an encephalon from a poop robber. And your mother is a... is a... womptroddler!

I won't say what I'm really thinking at the moment so as not to have the thread locked. Yeah, Champie, if I'm outraged that my country is engaging in rendition and torture, sneak and peak searches, indefinate incarceration of US citizens without due process, is trolling our medical and library records, spying on peaceful activists, and all the rest I'm just overly emotional. Should I assume all of those things are just fine and dandy with you?

well, the thread is about Secretive Eavesdropping. The question is whether or not it is legal for the president to perform electronic surveillance without a warrant.

So, your rant about all the things you see wrong with the US Govt dem9nstrates that you are emotionally overwhelmed and cannot add to the discussion. I have made no comments about the things you list, and I do not intend to. Assume what you wish.

Okay, so warantless eavesdropping doesn't raise any alarm bells with you on top of the other things I listed that we know for a fact are happening? All you've got to say about it is no comment?

The new question is, "Is Secretive Eavesdropping redundant?"

Not quite true. You can make international phone calls from (or vice versa) the U.S., as a citizen, to other nations where the receiver is also U.S. citizen. It would seem the 4th amendment certainly applies here.

Imagine a reporter phoning in a story from Iraq to their home office in the U.S. about "Terrorists", which happened to mention "suicide bombers" or "islam" or various other possible keywords. If they have an automated system designed to pick up on such keywords automatically, isn't it extremely likely that a lot of these reporters are being monitored simply because they wind up talking about a lot of the same jihadish stuff that the terrorists talk about simply because they are reporting it? Isn't that extremely illegal without a warrent at some point?

I don't know if it's been said cause I'm not reading all of this. But the program was started by Clinton and Congress was fully aware of it through it's entirety. I'm not a fan of the program either, but on what grounds do we impeach Bush when he just elongated a system already in place. This is nothing new. People need to realize more people exist in washington than just Bush, our government is set up to require the actions of many men to enact an idea.

The program was not started by Clinton. It was started after 9/11 by Bush, bypassing the FISA court that has to issue warrants for such things (FISA was established during the Carter administration). Bush is claiming the Afghan war resolution gives him carte blanche to ignore the law of the land.

Actually they had just brought it up yesterday on CNN of all things, Wolf Blitzer talking with CNN's lawyer, paperwork has come out saying that the program was originally started with the Clinton administration.

Interesting. I didn't keep up with the news yesterday. I'll have to do some digging. Thanks.