White House website says court orders are required for all wiretaps!

[jefferson_dem]

This, from Chimpy's own stinkin' lying lips -->

Secondly, there are such things as roving wiretaps. Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/04/20040420-2.html

[bucknaked]

1. Somebody better mirror it quick.

lol! Good chance it won't survive the night.

[babylonsister]

2. CNN has been repeating this, w/video, often this afternoon!

It's been grand to see!

[wtmusic]

3. Heh heh

good catch

[bufffbison]

4. more links to dod.mil, regards to wiretapping

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Apr2004/n04202004_20l0404203.html

"....Roving wiretaps. Bush said that before the Patriot Act went into effect, law enforcement officials had the authority to use so-called "roving wiretaps" – which allow for officials to follow the subject of the court- ordered wiretap from one phone to another – to investigate organized crime and drug dealers but not to investigate terrorists.
"Terrorists could switch phones and we couldn't follow them," Bush said. "The Patriot Act changed that."


Delayed-notification search warrants. Such warrants, allow law enforcement personnel, with court approval, to carry out lawful searches without tipping off subjects and giving them a chance to flee or destroy evidence, Bush said.
"Before September the 11th, the standards for these kinds of warrants were different around the country. It made it hard to have kind of a national strategy to chase down what might be a terrorist group," he said. "The Patriot Act provided a clear national standard and now allows these warrants to be used in terrorism cases."


http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Aug2003/n08202003_200308206.html

...."A congressional report on the 9-11 attacks found that U.S. law enforcement relied on "outdated and insufficient technology," according to Ashcroft. The Patriot Act gave law enforcement improved tools. Before the act, investigators had to get a different wiretap order every time a subject changed cell phones. Now investigators can get a single order that applies to all phones a suspect uses."



http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2002/t11272002_t1117sunsen.html

....."Q: Is this really a domestic law enforcement function or was this a war in which we have enemy combatants on our own turf?

Wolfowitz: That's a very good question. It's in some ways both. But let's say when it comes to doing a wiretap on a domestic suspect I don't think people want the Defense Department doing that. On the other hand if we pick up through our intelligence sources that there's some bad actor coming into the United States, we will very quickly alert the FBI to make sure that they get there (inaudible). I recall just in the last couple of days being involved in precisely one of those kinds of handoffs of information from DoD to the FBI and ."

[helderheid]

5. save that sucker!