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NSA Wiretaps: ACLU loses, journalists throw fit

Written by Cao

Looking at the headlines, you just have to laugh. Look at the hysterics.

Federal appeals court overturns wiretap ruling (Detroit Free Press)

Panel Dismisses Suit Challenging Secret Wiretaps (New York Times)

US Appeals Court Orders Surveillance Case Dismissed (Update3) (Bloomberg)

Court dismisses suit over wiretaps (Fort Worth Star Telegram)

All of them are just reiterating the Associated Press’s Lisa Cornwell’s piece.

CINCINNATI — A divided federal appeals court rejected a lawsuit Friday challenging President Bush’s domestic spying program without ruling on the issue of whether warrantless wiretapping is legal.

Artfully crafted, isn’t it? Rejected a lawsuit challenging the President’s domestic spying program without ruling on the issue. Oh, maybe they still have a chance if they appeal! Then she says “of whether warrantless wiretapping is legal.” So the American people are thinking, hey. Warrantless wiretapping? Shouldn’t there be a warrant? And of course another reason why this makes headlines is because of Watergate and Nixon’s infamous wiretapping. Had it been Clinton, none of this would be making news, I’m sure.

Well do you really think there should have to be a warrant? In 2002, Abu Zubaydah, a senior member of Al Qaeda, was captured in Afghanistan.¹ Computers and cell phones with phone numbers were valuable bits of information the CIA obtained in that raid. Did they have to have a warrant? So, the logical next step after Zabaydah’s capture, was the NSA began monitoring calls placed to those phone numbers.

Abu Zabaydah is alleged to have briefed Richard Reid, the shoebomber.² If someone in America, or anywhere, for that matter, is placing calls to one of those Al Qaeda phone numbers, I would want someone to be monitoring it in order to head off any future attacks, particularly attacks on American soil.

You can take any number of close calls that have hit the news and draw a similar conclusion about the dangers we face if we don’t allow the NSA to do this monitoring.

Take for example the Ohio trucker, Lyman Farris, who plotted to bomb the Brooklyn bridge.³ If the ACLU has its way, though, a guy like Farris will have every right to talk on a secure private line with Bin Laden himself. The ACLU⁴ and the democrats,⁵ in fact, want to guarantee that right to every terrorist; you can tell by the cases they’re taking on terrorists’ behalf. They’re even representing detainees at Gitmo, complaining that Gitmo should be shut down.

Let’s just let them all go; they’re victims of evil Amerikka, after all. Who cares if Americans are killed in another attack? They’re all little Eichmann’s and they deserve it.

The problem is that after Watergate, in the mid-’70’s the Senate committee spotlighted some abuses and then went to the other extreme. The end result was Congress tied the hands of our intelligence agencies. The FBI can do little to monitor groups like Al Qaeda as a result; it has prevented the FBI from performing ‘blanket surveillance’. The only time you can is 1) if they appear to be in the act of committing a crime or 2) after the fact. Most of the time it’s after people are dead and they come with surgical gloves to zip up the body bags.

Former FBI official Oliver Revel said that the FBI is forbidden to even compile newspaper or other publicly available clippings on groups like Al Qaeda without receiving prior permission to open an ‘investigation’. It’s no wonder we’re reactive and not proactive!⁶ In fact, according to Wes Vernon (2002), FBI agents have been sued for deviating from those rules.⁷

In a 2-1 decision with Republican-appointed judges in the majority, a three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the plaintiffs had no standing to sue because they couldn’t prove that their communications had been monitored by the government. The appeals court vacated a 2006 order by a lower court in Detroit, which concluded that the program was unconstitutional.

So the lower court concluded the NSA Spying program was unconstitutional, but they couldn’t prove that it occurred? Is that because there was a member of Al Qaeda on the other end of the phone? Who is it that is complaining about these wiretaps, specifically? You just have to appreciate how this piece is worded to produce the desired impact.

It’s apparent that the ACLU and leftists who oppose this program are really not concerned about supporting the constitution, they’re more about deconstructing it and rewriting it according to international law.⁸

The decision underscored the difficulty of challenging the anti-terrorism program in court because its secret nature prevents plaintiffs from obtaining surveillance information. The National Security Agency had refused to turn over information about the warrantless wiretapping that would have bolstered the court case.

That’s why it’s called ’secret’. duh. The ACLU, along with scores of other leftist organizations, questions the government’s right to have ’secrets’. There was a time when you could be arrested and sent to prison for selling government ’secrets’.⁹

Nowadays, they broadcast them in the New York Times.¹⁰

“I think what in effect they’re saying is that we can’t tell you whether you have been wiretapped because that’s a secret. And unless you know you’ve been wiretapped, you can’t challenge that program,” said Steven R. Shapiro of the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed the lawsuit.

As long as you’re not calling Bin Laden, I wouldn’t think you’ve got to worry about it, which is the entire point. Call a member of Al Qaeda, and you should have a world of trouble on your hands, and I think the American people, if they knew what this is really about, would unanimously agree.

President Bush authorized warrantless monitoring of international telephone calls and e-mails when one party is believed to be a terrorist or to have terrorist ties.

That evil Bush. The nerve of his trying to protect the American people from terrorists. We should do like Britain does; and allow Al Qaeda to work for the police¹¹ for fear of ACLU lawsuits like this one against the NSA wiretapping program.