warrant

Leave it to Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins to figure out ways to let the government extend their reach even more:

Lieberman and Collins’ solution is one of the more far-reaching proposals. In the Senators’ draft bill, “the President may issue a declaration of an imminent cyber threat to covered critical infrastructure.” Once such a declaration is made, the director of a DHS National Center for Cybersecurity and Communications is supposed to “develop and coordinate emergency measures or actions necessary to preserve the reliable operation, and mitigate or remediate the consequences of the potential disruption, of covered critical infrastructure.”

“The owner or operator of covered critical infrastructure shall comply with any emergency measure or action developed by the Director,” the bill adds.

These emergency measures are supposed to remain in place for no more than 30 days. But they can be extended indefinitely, a month at a time.

So we continue to ignore the 4th amendment. Forget the fact that these networks are private property and this would constitute a government seizure of that property without a court issued warrant. That pesky Constitution stuff doesn't matter to the likes of Lieberman and Collins.

Adding...with the history of our government losing private data, how much would we trust them "securing" private networks? I sure wouldn't.

So it turns out that a member of Congress was targeted for some NSA spying:

And in one previously undisclosed episode, the N.S.A. tried to wiretap a member of Congress without a warrant, an intelligence official with direct knowledge of the matter said.

The agency believed that the congressman, whose identity could not be determined, was in contact — as part of a Congressional delegation to the Middle East in 2005 or 2006 — with an extremist who had possible terrorist ties and was already under surveillance, the official said. The agency then sought to eavesdrop on the congressman’s conversations, the official said.

The official said the plan was ultimately blocked because of concerns from some intelligence officials about using the N.S.A., without court oversight, to spy on a member of Congress.

So during the Bush regime, the NSA wanted to spy on a member of Congress. I bet that Congress now gets more interested in the entire NSA destruction of our Constitution.

And a new story has emerged that he MUST answer for:

President Bush has quietly claimed sweeping new powers to open Americans' mail without a judge's warrant, the Daily News has learned.

The President asserted his new authority when he signed a postal reform bill into law on Dec. 20. Bush then issued a "signing statement" that declared his right to open people's mail under emergency conditions.

That claim is contrary to existing law and contradicted the bill he had just signed, say experts who have reviewed it.

That's right - our dictator can now snoop in our mail WITHOUT a warrant. Are you listening Democrats? Fuck all these Republicans telling you that you shouldn't consider impeachment. This man is destroying our country and has ignored our constitution. That very document says he should be impeached for that. I suggest the Democrats listen to our Constitution and send this jack-ass packing.

Well things are really heating up in DC:

Law enforcement officials executed search warrants Friday on the house and office of the CIA's outgoing executive director, the FBI said.

The agency's third ranking official, Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, has been under investigation by the FBI, IRS, Defense Criminal Investigative Service and the CIA's inspector general, said FBI spokeswoman April Langwell in San Diego.

Under a sealed warrant, officials searched Foggo's Virginia home and his office at the CIA's Langley, Va., campus, Langwell said. She could provide no other details.

The FBI and other agencies have been investigating whether Foggo improperly intervened in the award of contracts to a San Diego businessman and personal friend, Brent Wilkes, who has been implicated in a congressional bribery scandal.

This should make for some real interesting talk on the Sunday morning talk shows.

The plan by Senate Republicans to step up oversight of the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance program would also give legislative sanction for the first time to long-term eavesdropping on Americans without a court warrant, legal experts said on Wednesday.

Civil liberties advocates called the proposed oversight inadequate and the licensing of eavesdropping without warrants unnecessary and unwise. But the Republican senators who drafted the proposal said it represented a hard-wrung compromise with the White House, which strongly opposed any Congressional interference in the eavesdropping program.

Read the rest of this at the New York Times.

This is really scary. Since when can Congress write legislation that goes against the Constitution without doing it in the form of an amendment? I suspect the first tests of this in the courts will not come out favorably for Congress. Of course now that Bush has stacked the Supreme Court anything is possible there.

Like I have said before. Communism isn't dead. It is just in the process of being reborn here.

Turns out Gonzalez can authorize a wiretap for up to a year under FISA as
Georgia10
points out:

First, let me point out that under Section 1802, the government can
wiretap a foreign power for up to one year without a warrant. Not 72 hours.
An entire year. This provision is applicable when the Attorney General can
"certify" that the information is used only for foreign intelligence
purpose. It requires certainty, but that provision is available to the
administration.

Check out her entry at
Daily Kos,
it is filled with some fun facts including how much Bush has actually used FISA.
I remember one of the Senators making a statement during Monday's hearings that
they extended the time a tap could be conducted without a warrant after 9/11. I
wasn't sure how long they extended or what the grounds were but apparently this
is what they were talking about.

Schumer and Gonzalez are going round and round about the issue of previous
AGs testifying to the committee. Schumer wants to know if the administration
would try to limit what they would be allowed to say and if the rules will be
the same for them as Gonzalez. Gonzalez is refusing to give a direct answer.
Schumer is not letting up on it.

Schumer asked if they could search a persons house without a warrant.
Gonzalez tried to say it would be circumstance to the fourth amendment but
Schumer quickly clarified that wiretaps are also subject to fourth amendment
protections. As usual, Gonzalez is refusing to answer and trying to dance around
the subject.

Schumer also asked if there was ever any calls intercepted between United
States to United States calls. Gonzalez said he would not get into "specifics"
of the program. Of course Schumer didn't ask for "specifics" just a yes or no if
it has occurred. Gonzalez refusing to answer it makes it look more like there
has been strictly domestic calls intercepted.

The following is not the first story of its type. Every week or so it seems
that one story similar pops up. The outcome might be slightly different but the
essence of the story remains the same.

An e-mail threat that prompted the evacuation of more than a dozen
Brandeis University buildings on January 18 led to an unusual standoff in a
public library in Newton, Mass., a few miles from the Brandeis campus.

Federal Bureau of Investigation agents tried to seize 30 of the library's
computers without a warrant, saying someone had used the library's Internet
connection to send the threat to Brandeis. But the library director, Kathy
Glick-Weil, told the agents they could not take the machines unless they got
a warrant first. Newton's mayor, David Cohen, backed Ms. Glick-Weil up.

After a brief standoff, FBI officials relented and sought a warrant from
a judge. Meanwhile, Ms. Glick-Weil allowed an FBI computer-forensics
examiner to work with information-technology specialists at the library to
narrow down which computers might have been used to send the threatening
message. They determined that three computers were implicated in the alleged
crime.

Late that evening, the FBI received a warrant to cart away the three
computers. According to Mayor Cohen, the warrant allows the FBI to view only
the threatening e-mail message and the messages sent immediately before and
after that message.

Article continues

here.