"Yesterday's ruling on the NSA warrantless wiretapping program could mean that businesses that assisted in the program are in for some serious legal problems. The judge's decision clearly dismissed out of hand the arguments of the telecoms, saying that the protections due journalists and lawyers was a clear matter of the public's best interests."

From the article:
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/con...bier_bier_tpnun

"Businesses accused of aiding the Bush administration in wiretapping could also be in for a legal bruising, say civil liberties groups that have sued telecom providers AT&T, Verizon, and BellSouth for allegedly helping the NSA. The ruling could set a precedent other courts can't ignore. 'Every phone company that is assisting the government in its illegal surveillance would want to think long and hard before it continues that agreement,' says Ann Beeson, the ACLU's lead attorney in the case. 'There are already lawsuits claiming that their cooperation for the past several years is illegal and now that the judge has declared it is illegal, their liability increases. The risk is much greater from a business perspective.'"

The people who oppose this generally dont understand how the NSA wiretapping thing really works.

The way I have heard it explained, it listens to calls into and out of the US (international calls) and looks for a pattern of calling or certain keywords that could denote possible terrorist communications. THEN, the number or numbers on which these suspicious patterns and keywords are discerned can be targeted for FISA warrants for a closer look to see if it is indeed terrorist planning. And if not, the target of the warrant will be subject to no penalties whatsoever...and he/she may not even find out a warrant was ever issued on his number, although I am not sure of this.

WITHOUT THIS ABILITY TO MONITOR THE CHATTER OF ALL INTERNATIONAL CALLS FOR PATTERNS AND KEYWORDS, we would have no idea what phone numbers need to have FISA warrants applied to them for closer scrutiny. Well, we could wait until AFTER a terrorist attack, and then hopefully find the phone number for the persons involved and then get a warrant for them...Oh, nevermind, by then thousands of Americans might be dead and it would be too late!

Or, we could HOPE that we would get lucky and stumble upon the phone numbers of terrorists who might be plotting to kill thousands of Americans. This could be done by getting lucky and finding a terrorist's computer or cell phone in Pakistan or Afghanistan or Iraq, or by hoping a terrorist in the US slips up and gets arrested for something else (like jaywalking, or drunk driving, or domestic violence, or robbery, etc.) during the planning phase and has the list of contact numbers on him.

How many of you are willing to abandon the NSA wiretapping program and take this chance in this time of war against the kind of enemy we are fighting, hoping that we happen upon the right numbers to get warrants for before they can strike? Thousands more could die as a result. They WILL attack us here at home again, and next time it could be tens of thousands killed instead of just 3000. Besides, this NSA-style wiretapping program is rather innocuous concerning most regular Americans, unless you are calling Pakistan or Afghanistan or Syria or Iran (et al). And it is an invaluable tool we need right now to keep the US and its citizens as safe as possible.

Without it, our attempt to keep Americans safer is going to be much more difficult, and many more Americans will probably die over the long haul.

And THEN how many of you are then gonna try to blame Bush for not doing all he could to keep us safe! I know there will be many hypocrites without shame who will attempt this.

Here's a response I got from this at Gunbroker (which sucks, by the way, because they never ban the anti-military and anti US posters, only those of us who argue with them).
I said "you are putting the Constitution above your lives" Many responses were, I'd be willing to die to protect the Constitution. BUT, those who responded don't take theW.O.T. seriously and hate Bush so much that they are blinded by facts. (and this is a freaking GUN board!!). Then of course a few threw the Ben Franklin quote "those who are willing to sacrifice liberty for security deserve none" at me and the others who would like this program to continue. The ironic thing is, even though the Al Jazeera..oops..New York Times gave out classified information about this, NONE of us (unless you have real high security clearance) know everything about this program.
This whole ruling was done by an ACLU searched Liberal moonbat judge. If the appeals court doesn't overrule this, (and I'm not 100% sure they're going to) I may consider a move to Israel,where at least the citizens of that country are willing to do what it takes to fight.
All I've concluded, is, those who are against this, are those who are against Iraq, the War on Terror, and President Bush. Hope you people have a safe flight now.

That's IF you take the administration's word and after all of the lies they've told us so far why anyone still gives them the benefit of the doubt is beyond me.

I can only surmise that some Americans enjoy being manipulated and lied to.

They said that not did Saddam have WMD and was planning to get us any moment but that they knew exactly where these WMDs were.

That assertion has since proven to be a bunch of bs. hasn't it?

Bush said Mission Accomplished over three years ago didn't he? Yep

When word of the wiretapping thing first came out Bush said "well it requires a warrant, and that's what we've done".. he was lying straight through his teeth then too...wasn't he?

He said "only international calls, only terrorists" But that too has since been proven to be a lie as well, hasn't it?

Now it's "well we've tapped the calls, but we aren't listening..." Well why tap the friggin' things if you aren't going to listen to them? That's just stoopid on it's face isn't it? Yet some of y'all have bought that too.

I swear...listen...this administration has long since lost the benefit of the doubt...stop giving it to them.

They're proven liars!

You dont understand the concept of a wiretapping. If the police wiretap a drugdealers phone, and he calls 30 of his customers to make a sale, those 30 customers have not had their line wiretapped even though the government now has recordings of their conversations. Those recordings can be used to prosecute the customers and they cant claim the evidence is not admissable because the government didnt have a warrant to wiretap THEIR phone line. THEIR phone wasnt wiretapped.




I dont recall anyone claiming that saddam "was planning to get us any moment".
And knowing exactly "where these WMDs were" doesnt ensure that you know where they will be tommorrow. MARK

Just get a warrant for pete's sake. What's so wrong with that, Mark? What is the problem with keeping up our significant legal principles, like due process and rights to privacy with judicial oversight over executive exceptions to the law (like wiretaps)? These laws exist to protect all of us, not just the terrorists, and frankly I don't see what having a handful of judges on speed dial 24 hours a day to expedite the warrant process will do to damage our ability to investigate would-be terrorists.

Because in most situations they dont have probable cause to believe a crime has been, or is about to occur. Talking to a terrorist isnt sufficient cause to believe the American on the other end of the conversation is also a terrorist. MARK

As I said when I quoted Dick Morris and his explanation of the reason why this wiretapping is necessary before you can target certain numbers for a FISA warrant, you dont know what numbers or individuals to scrutinize with a warrant until you use the general wiretapping to find suspicious patterns or the repeated use of suspicious words. I dont know how to make it any clearer.

And unless you think that Dick Morris, still a self-proclaimed DEMOCRAT, has been hired or paid off by the Bush Admin to make their case in the media, believing this technique is valid and necessary isnt simply a case of me being willing to "take the administration's word" on this.

If you leftwingers could ever get over your hatred and mistrust of Bush...it think it is due primarily to the fact that he won 2 close elections you think he didnt deserve to win or were even "stolen" ...maybe you could start using a little common sense and could see things the way they really are in this world, and realize Bush isnt the "evil freedom-infringer" many of you think he is. Jeesh.

And even if there was a clear declaration of war (which I wish had been done anyway), I STILL dont think many of you Bush haters/distrusters would be as on board with this total war effort as you should be by now. And dont forget that Bush isnt the first president who has done things that might have been "unconstitutional" during wartime. Presidents as far back as Lincoln circumvented the Constitution to help defeat the enemy. And I seem to remember heading that FDR approved some kind of illegal eavesdropping during WWII to help us defeat the enemy and keep Americans safe from attack. Are you opposed to these instances as well?

And like I have said before, if you want to take tools like these away from the admin in this war effort, dont even blame Bush and Company if we are hit again because these tools that could have prevented the attacks were no longer permitted!