NSA and Fourth Amendment: From "shall not" to "maybe, maybe not"

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause..." 4th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution

The Boston Globe reports today that the electronic eavesdropping law they want to make permanent allows the government to engage in spying without any warrant or oversight as long as, in the case of a phone tap, it is "reasonably believed" that one of the parties is overseas, and the "intended" target is not the American. So, even assuming the best of motives, if you are an AP reporter with the mother of all breaking stories coming from Iraq which spells trouble for the administration, watch your back. Bad things happen to reporters in Iraq. At a minimum the damage control operation will have real-time info.

The Fourth Amendment recognized that searches were sometimes required in the name of the law, but requires authorities to obtain warrants from judges and have "probable cause." What the Founders sought to limit were pure fishing expeditions, and harassment. It could be argued that when massive numbers of "transactions" are processed, as Mike McConnell, Director of National Intelligence calls them, then an audit of search results and keywords would substitute as the oversight intended by warrants.

I'm not so sure such massive data mining operations aren't counterproductive. If you know, for example, that Terrorist A is going to call Terrorist B on such and such a day on a cellphone terminating somewhere on a Philly cell tower network, then that is a search that is limited in scope. If you are looking for "patterns" and sweeping every conversation that includes the words "Bush sucks," you are probably wasting the taxpayer's money, which would be better spent training all those Arabic translators that we're so short of, and training the potential Arab-American agents that the CIA is turning away in favor of Midwestern guys who stand out like sore thumbs in any Middle Eastern bazaar. On other words, good old fashioned spy work (yes, like Valerie Plame did, before she was exposed!)

Any Congress that accepts "reasonably believed to be overseas" is a Congress that might be interested in a bridge I've got to sell. Of course people won't understand what has really happened until your million dollar marketing plan suddenly seems to be getting out-guessed by a company headed by that Young College Republicans prick you used to know, and you'll never be able to prove a thing.

Yalies for Impeachment of Bush and Cheney Sign-in and discussion

Add your name and a comment to register your presence! We'll update this to a slicker format soon.


-Violated the oath of office to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution, specifically the Sixth Amendment right of American citizens, in criminal matters, to be told of the charges against them, to counsel, and a to speedy and public trial by a jury of their peers. The rights of foreign nationals may be debated, but the rights of Americans are not open to debate. They are stated clearly in the Constitution, and "enemy combatant" precedents obviously cannot apply to a vaguely defined "war on terror" intended to have an infinite horizon. Jose Padilla was detained and tortured for 4 1/2 years in violation of his rights, and the administration to this day claims the authority to do so to any American it accuses of terrorism.

-A corollary charge, they have sought to overturn the Bill of Rights of the Constitution by the transparent device of claiming wartime powers which would last forever.

-Violated the oath of office to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution, specifically the Fourth Amendment right to freedom from search without a warrant, in the NSA warrantless surveillance scandal. The media assists the administration in twisting the issue to be whether or not the government can spy, when in fact the government has always been authorized to spy on anyone as long as it does so within the law, with a warrant obtained before or even after the fact. Referring to this, former Nixon White House Counsel John Dean says Bush is the only president in history who has openly admitted an "impeachable offense."

-Lied to Congress and the American people to draw the country into the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

-Given secrets to the enemy in wartime by ordering the public identification of American intelligence agent Valerie Plame, which constitutes treason, because Plame was engaged in tracing weapons of mass destruction before they reached American shores

We, the undersigned, call upon the U.S. Congress to perform its duty under the Constitution to remove from office those who have committed such high crimes and misdemeanors, and to commence impeachment proceedings against first Richard Cheney, then George W. Bush.

Back to YaliesForImpeachment.org