"Reasonable belief" vs. "probable cause"
Gen. Michael Hayden, head of the NSA made the first speech of the administration's three day PR campaign to justify the warrantless NSA spying. And the NYTimes coverage hits this one dead on the head writing straight down the middle. (don't get to say that very often.)
That's it. Right to the middle of it. Did/does the Bush administration have the authority to bypass the FISA court if they wanted to start surveillance without court admissible evidence? I would say no.
The logical following argument to me is this: Was that "reasonable belief" formed by evidence inadmissible to the FISA court because it was gathered through questionable means, such as rendition or torture? I would guess yes.
The standard laid out by General Hayden - a "reasonable basis to believe" - is lower than "probably cause," the standard used by the special court created by Congress to handle surveillance involving foreign intelligence. ....
But General Hayden said that the difference in the legal standards also played an important role in determining whether to go to the FISA court or not.
That's it. Right to the middle of it. Did/does the Bush administration have the authority to bypass the FISA court if they wanted to start surveillance without court admissible evidence? I would say no.
The logical following argument to me is this: Was that "reasonable belief" formed by evidence inadmissible to the FISA court because it was gathered through questionable means, such as rendition or torture? I would guess yes.
posted by mikevotes at
1:03 PM
4 Comments:
I don't think that this is going to quiet the firestorm one bit. The general said:
...that warrantless searches were conducted when one of a "handful" of senior officers at the security agency determined that there was a "reasonable belief" that one party to a call between someone in America and someone overseas had a link to Al Qaeda.
I highly doubt the accuracy of this statement. More likely, the "warrantless" seach took place as a side-effect of the general NSA info-gathering operation (with expanded parameters), and the oversight only happened when they found something interesting.
By
Anonymous, at 2:32 PM
Yeah, I don't think it holds up either.
I think that the admission that these "taps" weren't run through the FISA court because they couldn't pass muster will sink the whole thing.
The issue, as you point out, is where the leads came from that led to the "suspects" being identified. Cause I don't even see this Republican congress revising Fisa to include illegally obtained info.
And how bad is it, that we can find illegalities in their version of what they did. Imagine what the truth is gonna look like.
Mike
By
mikevotes, at 4:22 PM
The most disturbing quote from Hayden this morning was this:
"It's the same tactics and procedures used to tell American forces 'You can go ahead and put a 500-pound bomb on that target,' " he said. "It's the same art and science."
So we drop 500-pound bombs on little more than a hunch. I know war is hell but do they really want this image out there as the reason domestic spying is OK?
By
left-over, at 4:29 PM
Left over, I haven't read the speech. In the wake of the Pakistan attack, he really said that?
Oh my god.
Mike
By
mikevotes, at 5:58 PM
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