For gunner

They tried to get a FISA warrant to search a stumbling bumbling students laptop, a fellow named Moussaoui.

They were unable to do so in a complicated wrangle.

By the time they got it sorted out..he and 18 of his bretheran had flow airliners into populated buildings and 3000 people died.

His laptop contained detailed plans and information on the 9-11 attacks.

Gunner

"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire. Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us) off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give them self determination under "play nice" rules.

Think of it as having your older brother knock the shit out of you for torturing the cat." Gunner

Reply to
Gunner Asch
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SANTA FE, New Mexico (AP) -- Lawyers for David Letterman want a judge to quash a restraining order granted to a Santa Fe woman who contends the CBS late-night host used code words to show he wanted to marry her and train her as his co-host.

A state judge granted a temporary restraining order to Colleen Nestler, who alleged in a request filed last Thursday that Letterman has forced her to go bankrupt and caused her "mental cruelty" and "sleep deprivation" since May 1994.

Nestler requested that Letterman, who tapes his show in New York, stay at least 3 yards away and not "think of me, and release me from his mental harassment and hammering."

Lawyers for Letterman, in a motion filed Tuesday, contend the order is without merit and asked state District Judge Daniel Sanchez to quash it.

"Celebrities deserve protection of their reputation and legal rights when the occasional fan becomes dangerous or deluded," Albuquerque lawyer Pat Rogers wrote in the motion.

Nestler told The Associated Press by telephone Wednesday that she had no comment pending her request for a permanent restraining order "and I pray to God I get it."

Sanchez set a Jan. 12 hearing on the permanent order.

Letterman's longtime Los Angeles lawyer, Jim Jackoway, said Nestler's claims were "obviously absurd and frivolous."

"This constitutes an unfortunate abuse of the judicial process," he said.

Nestler's application for a restraining order was accompanied by a six-page typed letter in which she said Letterman used code words, gestures and "eye expressions" to convey his desires for her.

She wrote that she began sending Letterman "thoughts of love" after his "Late Show" began in 1993, and that he responded in code words and gestures, asking her to come East.

She said he asked her to be his wife during a televised "teaser" for his show by saying, "Marry me, Oprah." Her letter said Oprah was the first of many code names for her and that the coded vocabulary increased and changed with time.

Her letter does not say why she recently sought a restraining order.

Rogers' motion to quash the order contends the court lacks jurisdiction over Letterman, that Nestler never served him with restraining order papers, and that she didn't meet other procedural requirements.

You are aware..that under current law...Letterman is now prevented from owning or even handling a firearm.

Gunner

"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire. Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us) off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give them self determination under "play nice" rules.

Think of it as having your older brother knock the shit out of you for torturing the cat." Gunner

Reply to
Gunner Asch

No they didn't Gunner. This falsehood is widely reported but it isn't true. They specifically did not ask for a warrant because the FO didn't want his name associated with it. IOW, the FBI chickens put their carreer ahead of the citizens of the US they are sworn to protect. Nice....

In any event, the search could have gone forward immediately on the authoriity of the President through the AG's office and a warrant subsequently applied for within 72 hours.

Reply to
John R. Carroll

Here is what really happened Gunner....

In Moussaoui's case, the FBI did not seek an FISA warrant to search his laptop computer and other belongings in the weeks prior to the Sept. 11 attacks because some officials believed that they could not adequately show the court Moussaoui's connection to a foreign terrorist group.

The USA Patriot Act, a set of anti-terrorism measures passed last fall, softened the standards for obtaining intelligence warrants, requiring that foreign intelligence be a significant, rather than primary, purpose of the investigation. The FISA court said in its ruling that the new law was not relevant to its decision.

Despite its rebuke, the court left the door open for a possible solution, noting that its decision was based on the existing FISA statute and that lawmakers were free to update the law if they wished.

Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee have indicated their willingness to enact such reforms but have complained about resistance from Ashcroft. Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) said yesterday's release was a "ray of sunshine" compared to a "lack of cooperation" from the Bush administration.

Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), another committee member, said the legal opinion will "help us determine what's wrong with the FISA process, including what went wrong in the Zacarias Moussaoui case. The stakes couldn't be higher for our national security at home and abroad."

The ruling, signed by the court's previous chief, U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth, was released by the new presiding judge, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly.

FBI and Justice Department officials have said that the fear of being rejected by the FISA court, complicated by disputes such as those revealed yesterday, has at times caused both FBI and Justice officials to take a cautious approach to intelligence warrants.

Until the current dispute, the FISA court had approved all but one application sought by the government since the court's inception. Civil libertarians claim that record shows that the court is a rubber stamp for the government; proponents of stronger law enforcement say the record reveals a timid bureaucracy only willing to seek warrants on sure winners.

The opinion itself -- and the court's unprecedented decision to release it -- suggest that relations between the court and officials at the Justice Department and the FBI have frayed badly.

FISA applications are voluminous documents, containing boilerplate language as well as details specific to each circumstance. The judges did not say the misrepresentations were intended to mislead the court, but said that in addition to erroneous statements, important facts have been omitted from some FISA applications.

In one case, the FISA judges were so angered by inaccuracies in affidavits submitted by FBI agent Michael Resnick that they barred him from ever appearing before the court, according to the ruling and government sources.

Referring to "the troubling number of inaccurate FBI affidavits in so many FISA applications," the court said in its opinion: "In virtually every instance, the government's misstatements and omissions in FISA applications and violations of the Court's orders involved information sharing and unauthorized disseminations to criminal investigators and prosecutors."

The judges were also clearly perturbed at a lack of answers about the problems from the Justice Department, which is still conducting an internal investigation into the lapses.

"How these misrepresentations occurred remains unexplained to the court," the opinion said.

© 2002 The Washington Post Company
Reply to
John R. Carroll

One can note it, but one will be noting in a vacuum if he doesn't note several other things. One is that FDR was operating under a declared war. Two is that there is nothing in this noting to note precisely what FDR authorized, nor how it relates to the Fourth Amendment. One should also note the same thing about Carter.

If one has some specific, documented evidence about what they did and more than empty speculation about how or why those things might have been illegal, one will have something to talk about. As it is, it's a Rove-type statement intended to imply something that may or may not have any substance. Bush, OTOH, has flatly ignored the law and probably has overreached the Fourth. We'll see as more legal opinions -- with explanations -- come forth.

'Good to see you back. I hope all is well, and Merry Christmas if I don't catch you again today.

-- Ed Huntress

Reply to
Ed Huntress

They were unable to do so because the FBI field agents and even FBI management apparently never read the Constitution (who needs a Constitution when you have a neocon administration, anyway?), and did not know that "probable cause" was the fundamental principle of searching and seizing evidence. Duh....

Here's the key comment about it from the report issued by the Senate Judiciary Committee:

=======================

First, key FBI personnel responsible for protecting our country against terrorism did not understand the law. The SSA at FBI Headquarters responsible for assembling the facts in support of the Moussaoui FISA application testified before the Committee in a closed hearing that he did not know that "probable cause" was the applicable legal standard for obtaining a FISA warrant. In addition, he did not have a clear understanding of what the probable cause standard meant. The SSA was not a lawyer, and he was relying on FBI lawyers for their expertise on what constituted probable cause. In addition to not understanding the probable cause standard, the SSA 's supervisor (the Unit Chief) responsible for reviewing FISA applications did not have a proper understanding of the legal definition of the "agent of a foreign power" requirement. Specifically, he was under the incorrect impression that the statute required a link to an already identified or "recognized" terrorist organization, an interpretation that the FBI and the supervisor himself admitted was incorrect. Thus, key FBI officials did not have a proper understanding of either the relevant burden of proof (probable cause) or the substantive element of proof (agent of a foreign power).

==============================

So now, Monday-morning quarterbacking, we're able to say just how far along the path toward a police state we should have gone in order to prevent this particular attack. One wonders to what degree we should implement a police state in order to prevent the next attack. Maybe monitoring *everyone's* phone calls will do it. Or maybe they'll use semaphore next time. We can monitor all flag-waving. Or, if everything else fails, we can just make someone responsible for knowing what the FBI is supposed to do. Maybe the Justice Department will wake up and realize it's them.

How much liberty are you willing to give up for a little "maybe" security, Gunner?

-- Ed Huntress

Reply to
Ed Huntress

Ah, apparently not.

Jim

Reply to
jim rozen

I've a better idea, Ed. It'll probably be announced by the adminstration shortly so I'll tip the hand and explain how it works.

Basically the police arrest every single person inside the borders of the US. That will be sure that ever single terrorist gets caught. Then they just interview each person arrested, and everyone they think is innocent gets let go.

Anyone who objects to this plan is either a) a terrorist or b) an anti-bush malcontent. Either way the ones complaining will be detained permanently.

It's a done deal Ed, we've already trashed about three parts of the bill of rights already.

Jim

Reply to
jim rozen

You sound surprised. That was Gunner talking, I mean blabbering.

Abrasha

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Reply to
Abrasha

Actually it does work, and quite well. The problem of course is in how it's applied. When done well it has salutary effects. When done incorrectly it's effects are odious. The main problem is that government doesn't know when to stop. In this area a little goes a long way. The problem is that once they get started they want to go on and on until the cure is worse than the ill.

Hawke

Reply to
Hawke

So your solution to is to let Bush turn the agencies responsible for national security into a modern day version of the Gestapo? By your thinking that's the best answer to terrorism. Just create our own secret police and put no constitutional restrictions on what they can do. There's no doubt they would be effective. Of course, this wouldn't be a free country anymore. But hey, who cares, at least we would be safe, right? Oh, wait a minute, even the Gestapo couldn't stop the French underground from sabotage and killing Germans. So we'd give up our freedom and would still have the threat of Al Qaeda.

Hawke

Reply to
Hawke

administration.

applications

Hey, all your going to do is confuse him.

Hawke

Reply to
Hawke

How did we go from monitoring overseas phone calls to the Gestapo?

Reply to
G.W.

Too late, he's well beyond reason as it is.

Reply to
John R. Carroll

Isn't that what ordinaru Germans were saying not to long ago?

Reply to
John R. Carroll

I was amused recently when my son wrote his essays for applications to Georgetown and George Washington universities. He had never been to D.C. and he wrote about the intoxicating feeling of driving so close to the three great seats of US power -- the Capitol building, the White House, and K Street. Actually, he mentioned K Street first, before I helped him edit his writing.

money/juice

Eh, we've always had that. It was far worse during the reign of the Robber Barons. What's new is that now we get the news about it, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We currently have a wealth-friendly, Social Darwinist administration that believes Herbert Spencer had it right when he scaled people's quality according to the amount of money they had. As G.W. once said, when opening his speech at a fund raiser, he was glad to be among "my base: the haves, and the have-mores." He was brought up among wealth and power and those are the things he values -- and the people who have them are the people he values.

But you can't escape the power of money and still maintain liberty and a vibrant democracy, I'm convinced. The trick is to keep it within bounds, as we did fairly successfully for most of the past half-century. Now we've taken off some of the limits and we see, right up there on TV, how a lust for power usually goes hand-in-hand with a Machiavelian duplicity and self-justification for breaking the law. The ambition for power and disregard for the law are two characteristics that are joined at the hip. People who have the first and who can avoid the second are remarkable exceptions in history. The people in power now are not remarkable in any such way.

Well, we could play that one many different ways. One thing that would be different is that we would have far fewer drugs and a lot more people living in pain or dying at an earlier age.

But I don't think that's what you meant. Looking at the industry with a somewhat sharper view than I used to have, I can confirm that huge money drives the industry, but the people who do the work are not driven much by money. It's about prestige, for the people doing the science.

Without the money, however, they would have little opportunity to do what they do, because the money drives the whole process. It is not a demand-pull industry. It is a supply-push industry, and the whole world of pharmaceuticals pretty much lives off of the free-for-all of the American pharma industry's economic and political environments. Even the British, French, and German companies would be in straightjackets, and far less innovative and productive, if they couldn't play in the freewheeling American market. This is where the big bucks are. This is where you can make a killing, if that's the right word in this context...

And Merry Christmas to you, John. It's one hour old here on the East Coast and I'm looking forward to the day.

-- Ed Huntress

Reply to
Ed Huntress

Ah..apparently so. I posted the cites.

Gunner

"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire. Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us) off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give them self determination under "play nice" rules.

Think of it as having your older brother knock the shit out of you for torturing the cat." Gunner

Reply to
Gunner Asch

THey couldn't get the warrant, because they were incompetent. Short of having all US citizens lining up for arrest, there's no way to solve *that* problem.

Jim

Reply to
jim rozen

Not so again.

Gunner

"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire. Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us) off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give them self determination under "play nice" rules.

Think of it as having your older brother knock the shit out of you for torturing the cat." Gunner

Reply to
Gunner Asch

The people that see nothing wrong with giving unlimited power to the government to keep us safe wouldn't see anything wrong with a Gestapo like agency in this country. As long as we would be safe from terrorists then there is no limit to what the government can do. That's what the Gestapo was, a government agency that had no restrictions on it whatsoever. Their only job was to keep Germany secure. A lot of us see that many of our fellow citizens would be more than willing to tolerate the same thing right here. Which is why the Gestapo comes up.

Hawke

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Reply to
Hawke

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