Fascinating FISA thread on Free Republic from 2000-2001

[mwb970]

Has this already been posted? The Freepers are complaining about the FISA law and its court because it seems to allow Bill Clinton to wiretap Americans. Horrors!

Here are some of the comments on the thread:

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As quietly as possible (although it sometimes breaks out into the open, usually with the sound of gunfire and the death of innocents), a "shadow government" has been set up all around us my friend. It's foundation is not the constitution, but Executive Orders, Presidential Procalamations, Secret Acts, and Emergency Powers.

It has all the tools to be an absolute tyranny and those behind it (on both sides of the aisle) who crave power and their form of "governance" continue to move towards it while we are distracted by so many other goings on.

13 Posted on 12/01/2000 05:31:21 PST by Jeff Head ([email protected])

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I don't see that as a possibility. This is wherein the danger lies in the precedent set by the Clinton criminal administration. God only knows who will be in power next, but there are no checks and balances anymore. This is exactly the SORT of thing I've been protesting all along. Libs just don't see this!

But when and where do they find this in the major media? They don't even know!

15 Posted on 12/01/2000 05:37:18 PST by vharlow

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This is one of those ideas that has a valid purpose behind it, but is wide open to terrible abuse. And there's no way to check to see if it is abused.

Like all things that don't have the light of day shining on them, you can be sure that it is being twisted to suit the purposes of those who hold the power.

21 Posted on 12/01/2000 07:01:09 PST by Dog Gone

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Congressional oversight of the FISA court is virtually non-existent. The only information required by FISA to be provided to congressional oversight committees is the number of surveillance orders approved each calendar year and brief semi-annual reports. The entire 1997 report on the FISC’s activity totaled two paragraphs.
--Source

24 Posted on 12/01/2000 07:38:00 PST by Sandy

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Note: this court still has to answer to Congress.

For some reason that doesn't give me a whole lot of comfort. Any idea when Congress last asked any questions of this court?

Look, I'm all for fighting terrorism and murderous terrorists every way possible. I'm not even averse to using a few methods that could be termed "extra-legal". At the same time, this court has been in existence a long time, established long before we were concerned about internal acts of terror.

And since opening an investigation under the auspices of this court allows the government to investigate anyone who has even the slightest contact with an identified suspect, one can only wonder how far some of these investigative efforts travel before they're closed down.

Assuming, of course, that they ever are closed down...

Secrecy during a sensitive, on-going investigation into criminal activity is one thing. Secrecy forever is quite another.

55 Posted on 09/27/2001 02:58:23 PDT by logos

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There's more. Apparently even legal wiretapping of Americans is a terrible danger to the Republic if Clinton is doing it, but illegal, unwarranted wiretapping is OK as long as Bush does it. Got it?

[Viva_La_Revolution]

1. Oh, the irony!

the beautiful irony!

:)

[bananas]

2. 'a "shadow government" has been set up all around us my friend'

Wasn't L. Fletcher Prouty the first to use that term, decades ago?

[Solomon]

3. kick. Good job.

[berni_mccoy]

4. Yeah, I Posted this thread from there and a few others about Wiretapping

That the freepers were outraged, Outraged, OUTRAGED about any form of domestic surveillance, warrant or otherwise. They've seem to forgotten all about those threads...

Here's the link to my post when the domestic spy case first broke: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=5653781

[yurbud]

5. vote this one up so freepers don't miss it