"Actually, the government is spying on Quakers, anti-war protesters and anti-military-recruiting-on-high-school-campuses people. The government is spying on American citizens who do not have ties to al Qaeda. Are your hackles up now?"

That is interesting. What are you sources? Were they wire tapped, as is the reason for the discussion or were they watched during the protests? There was a story in our news last night regarding the sailor that refused to board his ship because he was againest the war. He accused the Pentagon of spying on him during a anti war protest. What the military was doing was monitering the protest that was held in front of the military base.  Which seems wise to me since we do want to protect our bases.

It's been all over the news for about 2 weeks now. You haven't heard? Are you serious? You haven't heard about the database the military is maintaining of these people? Google it, you'll find plenty of stories/articles.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/10454316/

A year ago, at a Quaker Meeting House in Lake Worth, Fla., a small group of activists met to plan a protest of military recruiting at local high schools. What they didn't know was that their meeting had come to the attention of the U.S. military.

A secret 400-page Defense Department document obtained by NBC News lists the Lake Worth meeting as a “threat” and one of more than 1,500 “suspicious incidents” across the country over a recent 10-month period

Guess #1.  Because what he actually wanted to do would be illegal, for instance, if the government was not intercepting communciations from a single named individual for a specific purpose as required for a warrant.  If he was authorizing all communciations to be scanned automatically and electronically, it would not be necessarily legal under FISA.  (Gray area.)

Guess #2.  Because getting authorization would require revealing a secret monitoring technology to the FISA judge.   The tactical advantage would be lost if the secret got out. 

Does anyone really believe that the people they were spying on thought there was no risk of being monitored. I dunno... if I'm a terrorist in the US, I'm not going to pick up the phone and call Mohammad in Bahrain and start chatting about plans, thinking "Hey, my rights are protected, the US government wouldn't dare tap my line."

Seriously, the people who are threat to us could not possibly have believed their communications weren't being monitored. I think the whole "Oh great! Now the bad guys know we're watching them" argument/indignation is silly and theatrical.

It's been all over the news for about 2 weeks now. You haven't heard? Are you serious? You haven't heard about the database the military is maintaining of these people? Google it, you'll find plenty of stories/articles.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/10454316/

A year ago, at a Quaker Meeting House in Lake Worth, Fla., a small group of activists met to plan a protest of military recruiting at local high schools. What they didn't know was that their meeting had come to the attention of the U.S. military.

A secret 400-page Defense Department document obtained by NBC News lists the Lake Worth meeting as a “threat” and one of more than 1,500 “suspicious incidents” across the country over a recent 10-month period

Not all Christian organizations are alike. Some Christian organizations are very Christ-like. Others espouse war (very un-Christlike). Anyone who paints all Christians with the same brush is being intellectually lazy.

Zealots of any persuasion are dangerous, IMO.

I totally agree. 

I'm sure wire tapping has been going on for a long time it just that the media is now discussing it more.  Everything we do now days is being watched...cameras every where, computer information logs, internet logs...blah, blah, blah.  Some people are catching every word you and I type.  If it helps stop or minimize a terrorist attempt or Enron ordeal I say go for it.  The government needs to find away to keep up with the "Jones's".   

The point isn't whether wire tapping is OK or not (at least in my mind), it's whether ILLEGAL wire tapping is OK.

Why didn't W. just follow the law? He could have gotten the exact surveilance he wanted legally, but chose to do it in a clandestine manner. Why? 

No, I never said they were being wire-tapped. We were talking about the government spying on Americans. The original poster said he would get his hackles up if that were the case.

That's the case.

Darn, my Quaker wife will be disappointed that their activities are not deemed credible any more.

Really?

Well first, they would have to know what the technical capabilities of the NSA are. Do you know for sure? Who, outside of agents within the NSA aka The Puzzle Palace, really knows for sure.

Second, knowing what the technical capabilites are, they would have to have the means to continue communicating in ways that circumvented the net. Lacking those capabilites, it seems reasonable that they would continue to communicate in ways that were monitorable.

Heard a report this morning that said that, in one case, wiretapping was ordered when a senior Al Qaeda member was captured with a cell phone that contained over three hundred numbers in the United States. The report said that the justification for not going to court was because they wanted to gather as much intelligence on those three hundred in the forty-eight hours before the story of the capture broke and the three hundred would probably switch phone numbers.

As to knowledge by congress, one member of congress who apparently had knowledge of this policy is Senator Jay Rockefeller D-WV.

crapola

Yeah, really. If you were a terrorist, would you assume the US government was not carefully monitoring communications? When this story broke, I was not surprised that the government was doing this - I expected that they were doing it. They would be stupid not to do it.

Your example said they needed to act within 48 hours. Sounds reasonable; I'm glad they had a sense of urgency. The law provides them a 72 hour window to act without a court order. This example is a perfect example of how they could have acted as they did, and still done it in a legal manner.

Amen.

Can't speak for anyone else, but I haven't said it grants the POTUS broad powers. I believe it is the POTUS who is claiming broad powers. Broad, vast and secret, it would seem.

If the POTUS believed his powers were not broad enough, that FISA had too many encumbrances to be an effective tool, why then did he not ask Congress to give him the powers he claims he needs - oops, the powers he says he already has? If the law is not effective in this campaign, why not ask for a better law? I think everyone agrees that post-9/11 POTUS has been given whatever he asked for to fight the wars. Nobody can make the case that he would have met with obstruction from Congress.

But those that received the briefings said that it did not constitute oversight because they were sworn to secrecy and their opinions were never considered.