[IP] Hayden on NSA program
Begin forwarded message:
From: Larry Tesler <tesler@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: January 24, 2006 3:24:02 AM EST
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [IP] Hayden on NSA program
Dave,
The problem with the "softer trigger" to which General Hayden
euphemistically refers is that there is never an opportunity for any
court to review NSA's judgment that their suspicions were "reasonable".
Nobody wants NSA to fail to detect and prevent a terror attack. But
history shows that intelligent agencies have often spied on
nonviolent groups and individuals who merely disagreed with some of
their government's policies.
In the '50s, J. Edgar Hoover had "reasonable belief" that the people
he wiretapped were "communist sympathizers"; in the '60s, "black
revolutionaries". In this decade, NSA only has to "believe them to be
connected with terrorists". (Riddle: How many degrees of separation
does it take to be unconnected with terrorists? Answer: Seven.)
Sometimes, the agencies are right that the people they spy on are
conspiring to break laws. Often, they are wrong, and the rights of
innocent people are violated. The FISA court exists to provide a
second opinion.
I find it worrisome that the people who are rationalizing warrantless
wiretaps are the same people who rationalized torture of innocents
and indefinite imprisonment without charges. What do they have in
store for us next?
Larry Tesler
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Begin forwarded message:
From: David Bolduc <bolduc@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: January 23, 2006 7:11:04 PM EST
To: johnmacsgroup@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Dave Farber <dave@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Hayden on NSA program
...
http://powerlineblog.com/archives/012915.php
HAYDEN DELIVERS IMPASSIONED DEFENSE OF NSA
Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden, former director of the National Security
Agency, delivered a brilliant and heartfelt speech on the NSA's
international terrorist surveillance program at the National Press
Club today. You can, and should, read it all here. What follows are
just a few of the many highlights:
...The trigger is quicker and a bit softer than it is for a FISA
warrant, but the intrusion into privacy is also limited: only
international calls and only those we have a reasonable basis to
believe involve al Qaeda or one of its affiliates.
... Just to be very clear -- and believe me, if there's any amendment
to the Constitution that employees of the National Security Agency
are familiar with, it's the Fourth. And it is a reasonableness
standard in the Fourth Amendment. And so what you've raised to me --
and I'm not a lawyer, and don't want to become one -- what you've
raised to me is, in terms of quoting the Fourth Amendment, is an
issue of the Constitution. The constitutional standard is
"reasonable." And we believe -- I am convinced that we are lawful
because what it is we're doing is reasonable.
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