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Originally Posted by sgtdmski You seem to forget that the Congress gave the President to use all necessary and available force to fight terrorism. That is law as well. |
Yeah.
A law which says the president CAN wire-tap as long as he gets a warrant.
Another law which authorizes wire-tapping without a warrant, but it CANNOT be used against U.S. citizens. And that is precisely the issue of concern here...
If you can show me the law which states he can wire-tap United States citizens WITHOUT a warrant, then maybe you'll have something.
Otherwise, you're just trying to gloss over the illegal activities with generalizing statements...
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Originally Posted by sgtdmski Once again, technology changes and Congress has not bothered to keep up with the changes in time and technology, the President is acting on his authority as Commander-in-Chief to combat further attacks on this country. |
Really?
The technology has "changed" to the extent that Congress doesn't know how to deal with wire-taps?
I thought they did...
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Originally Posted by sgtdmski The Courts have always granted a President, wide sweeping powers when it comes to national security. This has been proven with the Gitmo prison camp. |
And as it was shown, the laws in this matter have EXPLICIT LIMITS.
Limits which I just pointed out.
Are you saying that Congress has granted the president the power to wire-tap U.S. citizens in a law which EXPLICITLY STATES that it cannot be used to wire-tap conversations which involve a U.S. citizen?
Is that what you are saying?
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Originally Posted by sgtdmski Although not specifically stated in the Congressional resolutions, the Courts held that the camp was acceptable under the guise of the President's responsibility as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Services in conjuction with the Joint Resolution giving the President the authority to use all necessary and available force. |
That's all well and good.
Back to the wire-tapping now?
An issue which Congress is CURRENTLY INVESTIGATING?
It would seem to me that if Congress had granted the president this right, these investigations wouldn't even be necessary.
Did Congress perhaps give the president the right to wire-tap U.S. citizens without a warrant, and then renege on the power that they had given the president?
Did Congress perhaps give the president the right to wire-tap U.S. citizens without a warrant, and then just forget that they had done this?
Or is it more the truth that Congress EXPLICITLY FORBADE the president from using that legal section of legislation to wire-tap U.S. citizens, and the president decided he didn't care?
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Originally Posted by sgtdmski Furthermore, the Constitution protects citizens from unreasonable search and seizures, the question the Court will ask is would a reasonable person think that their phone calls to a known terrorist or a foreign agent not be possibly tapped. |
Oh. Come ON now Sarge.
Do you REALLY THINK that is what the courts will be asking???
Nothing like rewriting the REAL issue before the courts, is there.
I mean, earlier you were quoting the actual law they would supposedly use to justify the situation.
Now you back-peddle to generalizations and a modified question which is quite ludicrous.
The question for "unreasonable search and seizure" revolves around "Reasonable expectation of privacy". Not the "possibility" that it could be tapped.
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Reasonable expectation of privacy
Not every incident where an officer ascertains information is considered a "search." An officer who views something which is publicly viewable (for instance, by looking through the window of a house from the street) is not conducting a "search" of the house. In Katz v. United States (1967), the
Supreme Court ruled that there is no search unless an individual has an "expectation of privacy" and the expectation is "reasonable"—that is, it is one that society is prepared to recognize. So, for example, there is generally no search when officers look through garbage because there is no expectation that garbage is private (see California v. Greenwood (198
). Similarly, there is no search where officers monitor what phone numbers an individual dials (although Congress has placed statutory restrictions on such monitoring). This doctrine sometimes leads to somewhat unexpected results; in Florida v. Riley (1989), the Supreme Court ruled that there was no expectation of privacy (and thus no search) where officers hovered in a helicopter 400 feet above a suspect's house and conducted surveillance.
The Supreme Court has also ruled that there can be no expectation of privacy in illegal activity. Therefore, investigations that reveal only illegal activity (such as some use of drug sniffing dogs) are not searches.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_...s_Constitution
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And you'll note that the last statement involves "no expectation of privacy in illegal activity". As when an illegal activity ACTUALLY exists. Not just when people SUSPECT it could exist because you're calling a foreign country that terrorists live in...
The issue is not whether or not it could "not be possibly tapped".
That is NOT the issue at all.
I could make a phone call to my aunt in Ohio realizing that it could be "possibly tapped".
Utilizing such a question as the litmus test for the government's capability to tap a phone is absurd and ludicrous!