"This is the price of living in a modern society"

trust me, reading this entire op-ed WILL make your head explode...

first, there's the title...

Too much FISA oversight?

then there's the co-authors, shameless bushco apologists...

David B. Rivkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey are partners in a Washington law firm and served in the Justice Department under presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

then, there's THIS...

Our privacy is compromised daily by government and nongovernment actors. This is the price of living in a modern society.

no, you horse patoots, it's not...

and, if your head hasn't exploded yet...

The real problem with the FISA amendments isn't about civil liberties at all. It is that they allow an unprecedented and constitutionally problematic review of the executive branch's foreign intelligence activities by the FISA court. As a check on the NSA's surveillance activities, the FISA court will be able to retroactively review the key ground rules that the agency uses to structure the surveillance of foreign terrorists who deliberately communicate into the United States -- and require changes in those rules. This proposal is certainly less onerous for the NSA -- less time-consuming and therefore less likely to block the gathering of important intelligence -- than having to get warrants on a case-by-case basis. Unfortunately, it raises some troubling constitutional and policy problems.

As a rule, the Constitution limits the judicial power of the United States to individual cases and controversies and to the issuance of warrants. Under the FISA amendments, the FISA court would instead, arguably, be issuing a broad advisory opinion, which the NSA would have to implement if it wished to continue a particular surveillance. That may violate the Constitution's separation of powers principles.

In effect, under this arrangement, the government will now have to obtain a judicial imprimatur to the procedures used to intercept all overseas communications coming into the United States. Thus, for example, if the Chinese defense minister calls into the United States, the procedures used to govern his surveillance must be submitted to the FISA court for review. Such a rule clearly cuts into the president's core authority as the nation's "sole organ" (former Chief Justice John Marshall's term) in foreign affairs, as well as his powers as commander in chief.

what a gigantic load of steroid-inflated, disease-ridden bollocks... i defy ANYONE to unearth a single instance from the invention of the telephone to the present where the outgoing communications of ANY foreign entity, government or otherwise, to the u.s. or to some other country, WASN'T considered fair game for interception, and ANYBODY who thinks THIS arrangement will alter that in any way, is smoking stuff way stronger than i've had the opportunity to sample...

what THIS arrangment means, in simple terms, is that ALL voice and data communication that is routed through ANY path owned by or physically located in the united states, originating or terminating in any foreign country, can and WILL be subject to intercept, without warrant, subject only to the review of alberto gonzales... and, for those who think that communication can be routed AROUND the united states had better think again... why do you think the u.s. was so adamant at the world summit on the information society, held in tunis back in november 2005, on keeping icann (internet corporation for assigned names and numbers) under u.s. control... that's one way the u.s. can INSURE that all traffic is routed where it chooses...

gotta keep puttin' these pieces together, dontcha know... it's amazing just how stupid they think we are...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet