OK, I have a question, what the fuck was wrong with the old way the FISA court worked?

[Solon]

As far as I know, the AG or one of his lackeys authorizes a wiretap on some foreign based communication, to collect possible time sensitive information about an imminent threat. Then 48 hours later, he, or again, one of his lackeys, is supposed to go before a judge and get a warrant to continue the wiretap. Now, lately, the Bush administration has sort of skipped the second step, but now its legal? How the fuck does this protect Americans? Considering that the Judges on the FISA court approved 90% of the wiretaps, what the fuck is the motivation of both the Dems and Repukes to legalize Bush's actions?

[aquart]

1. Since it never said no, I guess nothing was wrong with it.

Or everything.

[Coexist]

9. wonderful point.

[phantom power]

2. what was "wrong" was that it worked.

BushCo didn't want a working FISA. Just like they don't really want any other aspect of government working.

[youngdem]

3. Yup. They told Bushco 'NO' a couple of times, so Bushco destroyed it

What was wrong with it is that it was sort of functional.

Repukes hate that. It destroys their ability to do whatever they damn well please.

[Robbien]

4. Because Cheney/Bush said so

True it was not legal before, but this motley crew of congresscritters would never do anything about that.

Cheney's main desire is to have a unitary president with no powers allocated to the Judiciary/Congress.

[L. Coyote]

5. Simple. Any communications routed through the USA required a warrant.

This, simply because it was routed through the US, no matter who was communicating. Bin Laden could call someone in China, and if the call went through a phone center in Los Angeles, the NSA was barred from listening by a recent FISA judge's ruling.

NSA is accustomed to listening to any foreign communication without impediment like US court's approval by specific warrant. Now they can do that again if the surveillance is approved.

[wiggs]

7. Not as simple as that. The difficulty arises because you can't be sure you've

excluded the possibility of eavesdropping on Americans. Now the net is cast very wide and you can be sure that US Citizens will be surveilled with no reasonable cause (aside from one end of the conversation being from foreign soil as if that's enough) and NO INDEPENDENT OVERSIGHT.

Combine that with a politicized judicial dept and you have an out of control power.

This is more than a simple issue. Read up on Bruce Fein on this topic or catch him on the radio (yesterday, Rhodes).

[Warpy]

6. It got in the way of wiretaps of Congressmen

the DNC, war resisters, and media people.

The FISA court authorized emergency wiretaps three weeks after the fact, so speed isn't the issue, no matter what Stupid says.

The only reason to want to bypass the court is if the wiretaps are totally illegal, something that no reasonable court, even a lackey court, would want to put a stamp of approval on.

[Disturbed]

8. The FISA Court refused to allow Spying on members of

Congress & certain members of the Media, so Busholini used extortion on various members in Congress to allow no holds barred Spying on anyone & everyone. Delete the 4th Amendment.

[mmonk]

10. It wouldn't allow for illegal stuff.

[A wise Man]

11. Nothing was wrong...

The courts had just ruled that what this administration had done under FISA was breaking the law. With Gonzo under investigation Bush had to get the congress to ligitimize his act by blackmailing congress into the deal congress approved.By allowing Bush to legally spy on Americans, Congress is now complicit in spying on Americans and cannot charge Bush nor Gonzo for illegally spying on Americans anymore.