I'd add that there has been an ongoing debate about domestic wiretaps, and there were people who are worried that the Bush adminstration was going to use the Patriot Act to investigate domestically without warrants. That is a totally separate matter, though, as the FBI has the authority to investigate crimes inside the US, unlike intelligence agencies that are prevented from spying domestically.

Nothing has ever come of that as far as I know. Maybe they are bringing that up alongside the real ACLU case as a hypothetical and people are getting confused.

I'll readily admit I am wrong if someone can point out a case wherein the NSA or CIA tapped a phone here in the US and listened to domestic calls. So far as I know, the only phones tapped inside the US have been by the FBI, who has authority to investigate crimes domestically.

Here is the CCR complaint described on their site.

In the course of representing these clients, the Center's lawyers have engaged in innumerable telephone calls and e-mails with people outside the United States, including their clients, their clients' families and outside lawyers, potential witnesses, and others. Given that the government has accused many of CCR's overseas clients of being associated with Al Qaeda or of interest to the 9/11 investigation, there is little question that these attorneys have been subject to the NSA Surveillance Program. The Center filed today's lawsuit in order to protect CCR attorneys' right to represent their clients free of unlawful and unchecked surveillance.

While they use the same tactics and call it "domestic spying" etc., they acknoledge that the calls and emails are those going in and out of the US.

People need to take these issues one at a time. They are very different. The ACLU and their ilk want you to confuse the situations and think the CIA is tapping your phone.

I'll readily admit I am wrong if someone can point out a case wherein the NSA or CIA tapped a phone here in the US and listened to domestic calls. So far as I know, the only phones tapped inside the US have been by the FBI, who has authority to investigate crimes domestically.

Some excerpts;

WASHINGTON, Dec. 23 - The National Security Agency has traced and analyzed large volumes of telephone and Internet communications flowing into and out of the United States as part of the eavesdropping program that President Bush approved after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to hunt for evidence of terrorist activity, according to current and former government officials.

As part of the program approved by President Bush for domestic surveillance without warrants, the N.S.A. has gained the cooperation of American telecommunications companies to obtain backdoor access to streams of domestic and international communications, the officials said.

Several officials said that after President Bush's order authorizing the N.S.A. program, senior government officials arranged with officials of some of the nation's largest telecommunications companies to gain access to switches that act as gateways at the borders between the United States' communications networks and international networks. The identities of the corporations involved could not be determined.

The switches are some of the main arteries for moving voice and some Internet traffic into and out of the United States, and, with the globalization of the telecommunications industry in recent years, many international-to-international calls are also routed through such American switches.

One outside expert on communications privacy who previously worked at the N.S.A. said that to exploit its technological capabilities, the American government had in the last few years been quietly encouraging the telecommunications industry to increase the amount of international traffic that is routed through American-based switches.

The growth of that transit traffic had become a major issue for the intelligence community, officials say, because it had not been fully addressed by 1970's-era laws and regulations governing the N.S.A. Now that foreign calls were being routed through switches on American soil, some judges and law enforcement officials regarded eavesdropping on those calls as a possible violation of those decades-old restrictions, including the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires court-approved warrants for domestic surveillance.

Historically, the American intelligence community has had close relationships with many communications and computer firms and related technical industries. But the N.S.A.'s backdoor access to major telecommunications switches on American soil with the cooperation of major corporations represents a significant expansion of the agency's operational capability, according to current and former government officials.

Phil Karn, a computer engineer and technology expert at a major West Coast telecommunications company, said access to such switches would be significant. "If the government is gaining access to the switches like this, what you're really talking about is the capability of an enormous vacuum operation to sweep up data," he said.

The full article; Link

"The National Security Agency has traced and analyzed large volumes of telephone and Internet communications flowing into and out of the United States as part of the eavesdropping program that President Bush approved after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to hunt for evidence of terrorist activity, according to current and former government officials. "

"One issue of concern to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which has reviewed some separate warrant applications growing out of the N.S.A.'s surveillance program, is whether the court has legal authority over calls outside the United States that happen to pass through American-based telephonic "switches," according to officials familiar with the matter."

"Since the disclosure last week of the N.S.A.'s domestic surveillance program, President Bush and his senior aides have stressed that his executive order allowing eavesdropping without warrants was limited to the monitoring of international phone and e-mail communications involving people with known links to Al Qaeda. "

The truth is in there if you can see through the propaganda. The only real cases brought against the Bush administration are for phone calls, as I said, that were directed to phones under surveillance overseas.

The NYT is always going to have "undisclosed sources" or "high level officials" that say things no one can prove or verify. People are imagining a lot of wrongdoing, but I don't see people coming forward with proof of it.

The only real cases brought against the Bush administration are for phone calls, as I said, that were directed to phones under surveillance overseas.

General Hayden has stated several times that the monitoring occurs at the NSA and that the decision to collect data is made by an NSA Shift Supervisor. Check out the transcripts of some of the briefings and speeches he's done this month.

The NYT is always going to have "undisclosed sources" or "high level officials" that say things no one can prove or verify. People are imagining a lot of wrongdoing, but I don't see people coming forward with proof of it.

Hopefully we'll find out at least a few more details next week when the hearings start.

I'm not doubting the part about some of the calls coming from outside the US, but I haven't seen anything that says the only "tapped phones" are outside the US. I'm really not trying to be argumentative, I just want to see something that says that other than your post. Your assertion that this was written about everywhere is false. We don't know the specifics of how the calls are tapped, so how can you say that? There are even reports that some completely domestic calls were caught up by the NSA. If all the taps are outside the US, how do you explain that?

Believe this?

Intelligence Director Defends Against Charges of “Domestic Spying” President Bush’s Director of National Intelligence General Michael Hayden on January 23, issued a press statement intended to defend the White House-ordered NSA terrorist wiretap program against charges that it represented “domestic spying.” General Hayden stated, “"I don't think domestic spying makes it. One end of any call targeted under this program is always outside the United States. I've flown a lot in this country, and I've taken literally hundreds of domestic flights. I have never boarded a domestic flight in the United States of America and landed in Waziristan. In the same way - and I'm speaking illustratively here now, this is just an example - if NSA had intercepted al Qaeda Ops Chief Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in Karachi talking to Mohamed Atta in Laurel, Maryland, in say, July of 2001 - if NSA had done that, and the results had been made public, I'm convinced that the crawler on all the 7 by 24 news networks would not have been 'NSA domestic spying.'"

What's your point drmiler? One end of the call is also inside the United States.

What's your point drmiler? One end of the call is also inside the United States.

The point is that as long as they continue to do it that way the war powers given to GW under the constitution would mean he does not need a warrant, so no law has been broken. Or that according to FISA

(1) Notwithstanding any other law, the President, through the Attorney General, may authorize electronic surveillance without a court order under this subchapter to acquire foreign intelligence information for periods of up to one year if the Attorney General certifies in writing under oath that— (A) the electronic surveillance is solely directed at— (i) the acquisition of the contents of communications transmitted by means of communications used exclusively between or among foreign powers, as defined in section 1801 (a)(1), (2), or (3) of this title; or (ii) the acquisition of technical intelligence, other than the spoken communications of individuals, from property or premises under the open and exclusive control of a foreign power, as defined in section 1801 (a)(1), (2), or (3) of this title;

Mark my words that is how it's going to play out. And just an fyi if "both" ends of the call originated outside the US...we wouldn't be having this conversation at all would we?

And just an fyi if "both" ends of the call originated outside the US...we wouldn't be having this conversation at all would we?

You seriously crack me up drmiler....seriously.

Please humor me and educate me....

Why wouldn't we be having this conversation if both ends originated outside the US?

Because then it would be legal!!!!

sushiK -

I know we've gotten rather off-topic. Sorry

Yeah, slightly, but is about an important piece of what is going on; the wiring tapping.

Baker made an interesting note

If we made it through Vietnam, and the McCarthy era, the Great Depression, and the friggin Civil War, I think we can make it through what is most certainly one of the most comfortable and carefree times in American History. Terrorism? Pfft. A byword, like the whole weepy teen "Lets Hope the Russians Love Their Children Too" crap in the 80's. If it wasn't terrorism it would be something else. Grave discussion about politics while you are waiting for the next season of The Real World... People make a big deal out of whatever they have to make a big deal about. In reality, I don't think many Americans are irritated enough about this stuff to get up off their couch, much less anything more permanent.

We did make it through the McCarthy Era, Vietnam and and a few other touchy American points in the past.

These past problems did take their toll on America; Country wide Paranoia, loss of trust in American government, propaganda whip-ups ect... We lived through them and now looking back they don't seem so bad but I wonder what the people who did live through them would say (anyone?). The issue right now with the Federal governement leaning on civil liberties is not at a point where people are getting concerned. I think that is why you have people still freely saying "watch me big brother, I don;t care if it makes us safe"

During the witch trials and the Mcarthy Era, people were in such a frenzy that if even to be accused by your neighbor of being a divergent, it ws enough to have to investigated. Gladly we are not at that point now with this terror monitoring, but I wonder if we ever could get back into one of these Black times where America is eating at its own insides because we have given up too much to be safe.

"Gladly we are not at that point now with this terror monitoring..."

Well, to sound a tad Liberal you aren't a Muslim, either. I wonder how the folks who go to these Mosques that preach "Death to Israel" feel. Ideas *can* be dangerous, and we're finally trying to hash out whether the expression of particular ideas can be illegal.

It isn't a conservative thing this time, because our more Liberal cohorts to the north and in Europe have spent a lot of time trying to make hate illegal. Hating and presuading people to terror blur in a nasty way right in the middle. Where we draw that line will determine the outcome of what you are talking about, I think.