The disgraceful right-wing distortion on the domestic spying issue

[etgryphon]

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It is my understanding that the approval from the special FISA court can be gotten after the fact. That is, that they can do what they want for 72 hours and get approval thereafter for what they did. And out of about 19,000 requests for approval, only five had been denied since the law was passed.

The law was passed with this in mind. Namely that the situations involving terrorism or other emergencies would require quick action that wouldn't necessarily come from regular courts.

If the Bush administration, in the aftermath of 9/11, had felt that FISA was inhibiting fighting the war on terrorism, they could have gone to Congress with a proposal to amend the law. Who in Congress would have opposed this?

The most obvious explanation for the failure to get approval from the FISA court is that is might not have been given. For the president to say that he didn't have to go to the court because of the Constitution or the congressional authorization for the use of force against Afghanistan is quite a stretch.

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I'm going to go ahead and agree completely with andy.

The FISA court is set up for emergency situations. You can set up a tap for 72 prior to getting approval. In addition, you can get the tap extended in 15 day increments to give approval time.

It is very disingenuous to state that you "don't have time" to get approval.

I think he can argue that he was given authorization through the 9/11 act, but that is a REAL stretch and the reason that we have the judiciary.

They have the job of sorting it out. I am very leery of this whole thing. It is a very scary America if this becomes OK.

-Gryph

PS: Still wouldn't have voted for Kerry...