Let’s be realistic here. People aren’t going to wait and see if it the country on the other end of the line has stronger privacy laws, they’ll act like the U.S. is the only country with laws.
I don’t understand what you mean.
In Fourth Amendment law, it’s not relevant what the SUBJECTIVE expectation of privacy is. In other words, if you believe you have a reasonable expectation of privacy in a hotel room, or in the garbage you throw away, it doesn’t matter. The question is: which of these expectations is society prepared to recognize as reasonable?
Answers: hotel room, yes, as the registered guest. Garbage, no - once you put it on the street for pickup, it’s fair game.
So you think a US citizen, *in the US, * can reasonably expect privacy from the US government if he’s talking to somebody else in the US, but not if he’s talking somebody in Canada.
What remarkable intellectual flexibility that shows.
What’s up with all these secrets leaking to the press? We’re so bad at keeping 'em.
Senate investigation - or not. Outcry - or not. Protests from coast to coast - or not. When you strip away personal ideology and boil it down to raw politics, Bush can cite that NY Times article and spin it to his advantage.
All Bush has to do is point out this temporary measure in this new age of terror prevented the destruction of the fucking BROOKLYN BRIDGE (a mere 1 4/10 from the WTC site). You may not like it, I may not like it, but the majority of the American people (especially those without Arabic surnames) will have less of a problem with it this lesser of 2 evils.
Interesting point Bricker, but I’m not convinced. Has it been established elsewhere…anywhere?? that international calls should not have the American government’s 4th amendment expectation of privacy? The fact that they can be monitored but other government seems a piss poor argument to me. Not much different then noting that your neighbor can overhear you or pick up your cell phone transmission on his garage door remote. We’re talking about what our government does.
Is there any precedence for this?
Shouldn’t have been much of a chore to convince a judge to issue a warrant then, should it?
BTW … blowtorches?
My thought exactly.
There’s no direct precedent one way or the other. This is, I would point out, how direct precedent gets made: the government seizes some guy’s curbside garbage without a warrant, and he tries to suppress the evidence. Case winds up at the Supreme Court, and they say, “There was no case law addressing an expectation of privacy in curbside garbage before, but we now decide that this is NOT something society is prepared to recognize as reasonable.”
Does the idea that the government can sift through your trash without a warrant seem “piss poor” to you, or not?
And what would the judge base the warrant on? The information about the plot came from the phone tap. Without the phone tap info, they would have no basis to request a warrant.
This is absolutely dispicable and un-American. I condemn the Bush regime. If he had a conscence, he would resign. He should be impeached, and his little dog Cheney too.
Bricker, of course, is already preparing the legal defense.
Is it un-American to sift through curbside garbage without a warrant?
How about to bug a public telephone booth without a warrant?
How about let a drug dog sniff your car without a warrant?
How about looking at your house with an infrared viewer to detect potential pot-grow lights in the basement without a warrant?
How do you know?
Precisely. Apparently getting a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court is a much easier than getting a criminal warrant. They only have to show probable cause that some one *may be * up to no good. In 2004 the court approved 1,754 warrants and refused very rarely. (If you want a cite for this go read the 3rd page of the NYT article.)
It seems that BushCo. just didn’t think they should have to bother with the nicities of paying attention to citizens constitutional rights.
IIRC, the Supreme Court has ruled on issues #1 & 4. They have to do with a reasonable persons expectation of privacy I believe. To my recollection, #1 is perfectly legal for the reason that the garbage is outside. I believe #4 was ruled unconstitutional. The other two I can’t say with certainty whether these issues have come before the Court. My guess would be if they have they probably allowed both because they involve public activity.
But I still think there would be a difference concerning a call made on a private phone as opposed to a public one.
Well, Trash is left out in plain sight and easy access to the public. A telephone conversation… not so much.
I know that ruling. Antonin Scalia wrote an excellent opionion on it. In this opinion, he cited that this was Garbage, which had been deposited on the sidewalk (a Public) area. He also stated quite clearly that he would not have supported it, if it had been an invasion of Privacy. His ruling revolved around the fact that it was something Discarded and Not within the suspect’s Private property. In this ruling he also alluded that it had been an unwarranted search of the supect’s residence, he would have had Big problems with it. Apparently, he understands the concept of privacy and the reason for search warrants. I believe this was not the only time he spoke about the issue of privacy, and the value of warrants. I also seriously doubt he supports unwarranted “fishing trips”.
So, irrelevant argument.
I sometimes wonder if our system would be better if we allowed advisory opinions from the courts. If a difficult legal issue came up, I’d rather it be cleared with the courts ahead of time (or rejected) instead of the executive branch shrugging their shoulders, saying “fuck it, maybe it’ll fly” and going ahead with it anyway. What do you think?
I understand the desire, but no.
The reason is that many of these decisions turn on information that isn’t developed until the event actually happens… AND that when there is a vigorous advocate for each side, the issue tends to get the attention it deserves.
In other words, if the administration were able to say, “Hey, what about this idea?” they could frame it as favorably as they pleased and no one will argue the other side. But when some guy has been arrested based on the tactic, he is highly motivated to point out every possible argument in his favor, and use the specific factual situation to his advantage.
Now Item 4 - thermal imaging (infrared):
http://lists.jammed.com/politech/2001/06/0063.html
Funny how, a man who some revile as “the bad conservative guy” may be one of our best friends.
How is it irrelevant? I ask because before the court ruled, there were plenty of people indignant over the invasion of privacy that going through your garbage entailed. All sorts of personal information - pregnancy self tests, bank statements, report cards, love letters - might be in your garbage. It’s tied up in an opaque bag and left to be deposited in a landfill, not pawed through by the government.
Now, it seems, the court has spoken, and any outrage on that score is no more. If the court permits warrantless taps of foreign-to-US phone calls, then people will accept it, and few will froth at the mouth and call it un-American in a few years.