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some FACTS children:
Wiretapping first became a tool of U.S. law enforcement in the 1890s, but the Supreme Court didn't establish its constitutionality until 1928, at the height of Prohibition.
The NSA warrantless surveillance controversy ("warrantless wiretapping") concerns surveillance of persons within the United States during the collection of allegedly foreign intelligence by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) as part of the touted war on terror.
All wiretapping of American citizens by the National Security Agency requires a warrant from a three-judge court set up under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. After the 9/11 attacks, Congress passed the Patriot Act, which granted the President broad powers to fight a war against terrorism. The George W. Bush administration used these powers to bypass the FISA court and directed the NSA to spy directly on al-Qaeda in a new NSA electronic surveillance program. Reports at the time indicate that an "apparently accidental" "glitch" resulted in the interception of communications that were purely domestic in nature.[5] This action was challenged by a number of groups, including Congress, as unconstitutional.
Except the small fly in the ointment is, if the data is collected but not observed is that legally a "wiretap" that requires a warrant?
Look we have examples of NSA agents going rogue and using the surveillance apparatus to check the movements and communications of spouses, partners, etc. (NSA: Some used spying power to snoop on lovers - CNNPolitics.com) Queries can only be issued under warrant according to FISA Section 702, however there's no limitation on collection, and if data isn't collected against what are queries being issued? Further we have admission of bulk collection of US citizens data stated as "metadata" collection of "suspects" however that doesn't discount the collection of data too, nor use of that metadata to reconstruct data i.e. who specifically was called when and what their location was, the number is collected in the metadata.
Compliance with the law as written does not mean that your information isn't being automatically collected collated and analyzed, just that no action is taken until such a time that you become a perceived risk or threat.
Hopefully they'll crawl back under the rocks they came from.
We know that's not going to happen. They are 0-2 on this President thing. Electing Bush was enough to question their judgment. Now they have selected a guy who at worst is treasonous and at best has suspicious ties to Russian mafia. I'm afraid they're going to make it 0-3 at some point.
The purpose of this program is to spy on foreigners which they can do legally, they cannot do that to US citizens without a warrant. The problem is the data they were collecting included US citizens. How or if that information was used is not known.
This is somewhat true. We know we spied on our own to blackmail.
No administration is scandal free, but we're only 6 weeks in and look at this s*** show. Do you honestly think the government can go on like this for 4 years?
And certainly no scandals like this. Has there even been a President with such well-documented personal and financial relationships with mafioso? It is said that JFK had ties with Sam Giancana, but Trump is essentially tied to every major player in the Russian underworld.
If Trump goes down during the next four years, it will be Pence.
Who so far has done an excellent job of not getting caught up in Trump's - well, whatever you want to call Trump's performance.
I believe that Pence despises Trump...after the way Trump treated him during the campaign. It would not surprise me in the least if Pence is behind some of the more damaging leaks..after all..he has the most to gain if Trump goes down..and revenge is a dish best eaten cold.
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