Update: The Admin might have (illegally) used information gained from warrantless wiretaps to obtain/bootstrap FISA warrants; a Justice Department official warned the FISA judges of this twice in the past four years. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/08/AR2006020802511.html
Of course, the administration’s position is that the the warrantless wiretaps are perfectly legal, so I don’t know why this would be a surprise. In fact, if the administration decided that they couldn’t use warrantless wiretap info to get FISA warrants, wouldn’t that be a tacit admission that the program was illegal?
The administration erroniously claims that the wiretaps are legal, but they were specifically told by the FISA judges that evidence gathered by warrantless wiretaps would not be admissible in their court. And yet they submitted the evidence anyways. Now, given that they’ve lied about the program to the congress, to the judicial branch, and to the American people, why shoud we trust them not to abuse this power to persecute their political enemies or curtail or undermine lawful political expression or blackmail people for their own ends?
Yes . . . but so is seeking FISA warrants at all.
And in more practical terms, these tactics legally taint the evidence against any suspected terrorist they might want to use it to prosecute. I can just hear an army of high-powered criminal defense lawyers licking their chops.
It’s my understanding that it was the judge’s decision not to allow the government to use the warrantless wiretap information in securing a FISA warrant. In the two cases in the cite above, the government went ahead and did it anyway.
What specifically was the lie?
That happened the first day the story broke in Dec. There are all kinds of legal challenges being raised simply on the suspicion that this data might have been used.
That I hadn’t heard. In what prosecutions, specifically?
From CNN.
On April 20, 2004, the President himself said that any wiretaps the government conducted require a court order and a warrant. Here is a link with a video of King George telling that lie.
But surely, John Mace, someone as informed as you on this issue and with as much time on your hands as you have was already aware of these lies. Will you present the “lie-that-is-not-a-lie” defense, AKA the “Sixteen Words gambit” or the “WMD Shuffle”?
Well, at least to the American people, how about this?
I just asked a question. No need to get so snarky. I honestly didn’t know what you were referring to. The President claims that he was talking about the Patriot act in that audio clip. And, in fact, he was addressing concerns people had about that legislation. But, by speaking as broadly as he did, it’s certainly fair to call what he said a lie.
Then I expect the legality of the surveillance program will be reviewed by at least one court, and that right quick.
How long, I wonder, before it wends its weary way up to SCOTUS?
Nope. No court is going to do anything unless there is actually some evidence that the NSA program was used in those particular cases. The lawyers are just fishing.
That was my first question when the story broke in Dec. But the more I think about, the more I think it won’t get there. Unless someone can claim this evidence was actually used against them in a court of law.
They don’t even have to claim that – only that what evidence was presented in court was in some way derived from arguably-unlawfully-obtained evidence. “Fruit of a poisoned tree.”
But, in none of those cases is there is no evidence that the NSA program was used to catch or convict the defendant. Imagine what chaos there would be in the courts if everytime a police dept was accused of violating a warrant, that every criminal convicted by the police department could appeal his case without any actual evidence that there was a problem with his original conviction? It would be crazy. There has to be some actual evidence that the original evidence was tainted.
The cases that the FISA court is talking about… those might stand a chance if there was a conviction, but we don’t know that.
Gahhh! Should have been:
But, in none of those cases is there is any evidence that the NSA program was used to catch or convict the defendant.
I aint’ got no good grammar today!
Some law tlking dudes and professors are batting around the idea that Congress perhaps, maybe, possibly could enact a law broadening a definition of standing to make these suits easier to pursue. Of course, Bush could veto it, but, if it is truly Congress v. President and not Repubs v. Dems, they may get enough votes to override the veto. It would open the door for suits to go to the Supreme Court.
I’m not versed enough in standing issues to know how successful that would be, but it’s a thought.
Not yet, perhaps. But, the can of worms having been opened, defense counsel has the right to conduct discovery to explore the possibility. Happens all the time. A few years ago in Pinellas County, Florida, a story broke about incompetence in the Sheriff’s Office crime lab, and all kinds of cases were reopened to see of any of the evidence presented at trial was unsound.
What would happen in such a case were the Sheriff’s Office to say, “Sorry, that would be commenting on something ongoing. Can’t do it”?
-Joe