FISA and Warrantless Surveillance: Then and Now
(cross-posted at Unclaimed Territory)
Try to guess who wrote the following paragraph:
Give up? That paragraph was written by none other than John Yoo (with co-author Eric Posner) in an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal on December 9, 2003. As most of you who are reading this already know, John Yoo is reportedly the man who wrote the classified legal opinion in late 2001 justifying the administration’s warrantless surveillance program. Based on recent reports, there is every reason to believe that Yoo’s 2001 opinion justified circumventing FISA on the sole grounds that FISA unconstitutionally infringed upon the president’s inherent authority under Article II.
In the op-ed, Yoo goes on to assure us that:
And this:
Could the deceptiveness of the Bush administration on this issue be any clearer?
Try to guess who wrote the following paragraph:
The Patriot Act's most controversial provisions
concern electronic surveillance of individuals
who threaten national security. But the act did
not initiate this practice. The system of secret
search and wiretap warrants, granted in a
secret hearing by a group of federal judges,
without notice to the target, was established 25
years ago by the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act. FISA was passed because
before 1978 authorities could conduct searches
to stop threats to national security without any
judicial warrants at all. No court has ever found
FISA to be unconstitutional, and just last year
a special panel of federal appeals court judges
reviewed the Patriot Act's central modification
of FISA and unanimously found it
constitutional.
Give up? That paragraph was written by none other than John Yoo (with co-author Eric Posner) in an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal on December 9, 2003. As most of you who are reading this already know, John Yoo is reportedly the man who wrote the classified legal opinion in late 2001 justifying the administration’s warrantless surveillance program. Based on recent reports, there is every reason to believe that Yoo’s 2001 opinion justified circumventing FISA on the sole grounds that FISA unconstitutionally infringed upon the president’s inherent authority under Article II.
In the op-ed, Yoo goes on to assure us that:
The Patriot Act represents a modest
retrenchment from an overcautious
interpretation of FISA, but nothing like the
pre-1978 regime of warrantless searches.
And this:
Much of the rest of the Patriot Act containsSo let’s recap. In late 2003, just as the presidential primaries were heating up, Yoo assured us that 1) FISA was constitutional, 2) the Patriot Act had modernized FISA, making it capable of dealing with new technology and with the threat posed by terrorism, and 3) FISA protected Americans from from warrantless surveillance. But at the time this article was published, the Bush administration had been engaged in secret warrantless surveillance, in contravention of FISA, for over two years, and it had been doing so pursuant to a legal opinion drafted by Yoo.
similar common-sense adjustments that
modernize existing laws, like FISA. FISA
warrants, for example, are now technology-
neutral; i.e., they allow continuing
surveillance of a terrorist target even if he
switches communication devices and
methods.
Could the deceptiveness of the Bush administration on this issue be any clearer?
posted by A.L. at 4:10 PM
15 Comments:
No, it couldn't.
Yes, it could
No it couldn't.
Yes, it could
These are some great comments. Thanks, guys.
:-D
Right about the facts and analysis.
Yoo, of "only organ failure is torture" infamy, the biggest disgrace to America since Benedict Arnold.
Now, how do you get this on Good Morning America and ABC-News?
(Do you really think Matt Lauer is opposed to the use of torture or illegal surveillance on on "suspected Muslim terrists"? Ha!)
I agree with your comment above.
thanks for fighting the trolls over here, so we don't have to fight them over there (glenn greenwalds). Your flypaper strategy is very effective...
All the mechanisms are in place for the American oligarchy to function as a well-oiled fascist police state. Just wait until everyone but white heterosexual evangelical Christians are deemed national security risks. Then we will reap what we have sowed.
Worth taking a look at this Foreign Policy interview with Yoo:
"John Yoo: I have no objection to amending FISA, if it can be done in a way that allows the government to preserve the secrecy of its surveillance techniques against al Qaeda."
A.L. -
Good catch, thanx!
John Yoo is a faculty member at Berkeley. When he publishes (even an oped), he is expected to stick to the truth. When a writer knowingly tells a lie in his published work, he is not only deceiving his lay readers, he is deceiving his peers. This is academic fraud. In science, universities routinely fire faculty members who commit and are caught commiting academic fraud.
I wonder if Berkeley will take any action over this documented fraud committed by one of their faculty members.
Margo Marquess
It's not deceptiveness ...it's INCOMPETENCE.
They don't know which arguments are best, and they cannot individually or institutionally make up their mind.
If they were deceptive enough, they'd be far more competent.
For the record, I don't think Yoo lied in his 2003 piece. In fact, his statements about FISA are true. I just think it was somewhat disingenuous for him to be making them if, as reported, he had previously drafted an opinion for the administration declaring FISA to be unconstitutional (on article II grounds) allowing for warrantless surveillance.
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