Thread: The Patriot Act, part 2

Originally Posted by Wildtim

A warrant is a judges ruling, before the event, that whatever the law enforcement agency is about to do is legal and necessary. This issuance from the court happens in a back room without any public access or representation.

There are plenty of situations where wireless searches are valid, and plenty of cases where they are not. The original FISA, for example, did not call for a warrant before the tap, just after. It very effectively created a paper trail on what was going on, so as to prevent nasty surveillance of people on a crazy Nixonian list.

Much of this stuff was post Watergate, and don't stop thinking of the situation in that context.

Sorry for not including the exception to the rule. Don't the judges on the Fisa court have to issue the warrent without knowledge of what the wiretap produced, in fact I thought they had to rule as if the event hadn't already happened.

Originally Posted by Wildtim

Sorry for not including the exception to the rule. Don't the judges on the Fisa court have to issue the warrent without knowledge of what the wiretap produced, in fact I thought they had to rule as if the event hadn't already happened.

There are many exceptions to warrants, for police mostly centered around "probable cause", I think. For FISA, I believe the judges do have to rule as if the tap didn't take place. I believe a warrant has been denied in very few cases-- less than five I think. This doesn't seem so much about rights as it does about about accountability, so if people start abusing their power there's a paper trail. It really was a very reasonable response to Nixon using all the powers of the government to make the lives of unfortunates on his "list" miserable. For any youngun's out there, the rules came into place because some powers got abused in a very real way. They didn't come about because of some liberal's idea that rights should be absolutely protected, but rather because a generation of Americans watched and saw how a paranoid creep in high office could abuse power.

The Administration has been making believe for a long time that FISA was irreparable, and they never could do what needed to be done under that system. It just wasn't true, and the Administration has now ceded the sole mechanism for such taps to FISA. Of course, in all this discussion, no one has pointed to any useful information gleaned through these questionable wiretaps. It really was paranoia on a Nixonian scale. The mechanism for the taps was there, but for odd reasons, the government simply didn't want to give up the names of who they were spying on, even to a highly cleared panel of judges that has never leaked any info, so the paper trail became quite thin. Of course, once people started asking, it became clear that Ashcroft was essentially fired over his questioning of the program (I thought I didn't like him, but now I think of him as the most honorable of the bunch), there was plenty of dissension to the program all over the government, and there seems to have been plenty of "accidental" taps of US citizens that exceeded even the guidelines of this non regulated super secret program.

There is plenty of dissension amongst Dems for "Caving" on FISA, but it doesn't seem like that big a deal to me. The biggest issue was immunity. Yes, the phone Cos have been granted immunity from Civil suits. They have not been granted immunity from criminal actions, nor has any Federal employee. If Congress wants to get to the bottom of this, there are still mechanisms. Personally, I would grant full immunity on criminal matters to the phone companies in exchange for full, complete, and honest testimony-- just like every other shoddy character in any Federal investigation gets treated.

Originally Posted by Wildtim

Anyone who is debating warrants should do a re-reading of the original amendments. They say that the government should not write any warrants for searches.

The way the system was designed to work there should be no such thing as a search warrant at all, or a wiretapping warrant, none of it.

Sorry, Tim, but I have to respectfully disagree with you. Here is the 4th Amendment:

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, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

It sets out conditions precedent upon which warrants may be issued, and limits the scope of the warrant and power of the government to search. (example being the warrant is to search your property for a stolen car, then the officers can only look in those places where a car can be hidden, and they cannot go through your kitchen cabinets unless they are big enought to hold a car). This is not a total ban on all warrants.

Matt

mhailey, I appreciate your efforts to teach us fact from fiction, hopefully it will make us more aware of the true nature of our rights as well as our obligations as citizens, if we wish to see the republic endure, and we the people remaining free citizens and not subjects. My regards to you sir. I wished we had a smiley doffing his hat.

Originally Posted by nun2sharp

mhailey, I appreciate your efforts to teach us fact from fiction, hopefully it will make us more aware of the true nature of our rights as well as our obligations as citizens, if we wish to see the republic endure, and we the people remaining free citizens and not subjects. My regards to you sir. I wished we had a smiley doffing his hat.

Don't make Josey Wales blush!!! he may just shoot you for it.

Matt

Sometimes ya just gotta get plain maddog mean!!
Josey, shoot me? Two fine Missourians from the same neck of the woods, not hardly!

Originally Posted by mhailey

Sorry, Tim, but I have to respectfully disagree with you. Here is the 4th Amendment:

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, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

It sets out conditions precedent upon which warrants may be issued, and limits the scope of the warrant and power of the government to search. (example being the warrant is to search your property for a stolen car, then the officers can only look in those places where a car can be hidden, and they cannot go through your kitchen cabinets unless they are big enought to hold a car). This is not a total ban on all warrants.

Matt

This whole amendment was a response to the issuance of general warrants under the crown, where a judge wold simply grant license to the police to search a home cause was not a part of the equation.

My point relevant to this topic is that a search warrant was originally supposed to be a very specific and difficult thing to get. Thats because a warrant takes the power of the person to question the governments actions away from him. This all did not mean that a search could not happen, however, as it tends to be thought of today. A search could happen, legally and admissibly, if the police officer was willing to be liable for the action. In other word if you were willing to risk a lawsuit you could perform any search you though was needed and then a jury would determine later if it was "warranted". When you think of how it was, with all power resting in the hands of the police held in check by the threat of the people you had a balance.

Today without a judicial warrant the evidence is tossed summarily. The power of the peoples protectors (police) and the people themselves has been diminished, with the power going to the appointed judiciary. I think our system has in this way gone of the track it is supposed to be on.

I much prefer the system as it was practiced in the nineteenth century where the police were free to act and the accused were free to challenge that action and the people chose who was right under the law.

Originally Posted by nun2sharp

Sometimes ya just gotta get plain maddog mean!!
Josey, shoot me? Two fine Missourians from the same neck of the woods, not hardly!

Rock Chalk Jayhawk!!!

OH, wait, sorry about that. What BCS bowl was MO in in this year??

Better watch yer @$$ mister, or Josies gonna shoot who? Ya redlegged Son of a &!*#@