FISA violations and Impeachment

From a look at FISA (which is extremely clear, even to a non-lawyer, on this specific point), the President is in criminal violation of the law:

Notwithstanding any other law, the President, through the Attorney General, may authorize electronic surveillance without a court order under this subchapter to acquire foreign intelligence information for a period not to exceed fifteen calendar days following a declaration of war by the Congress.

This should serve as a basis for impeachment. Of course, this is contingent on our government being a functional democracy. This will be a clear test of whether it is or isn't. My belief is that it will prove to be dysfunctional, even in a cut and dry situation like this.

Think of this way, if the President can do this, he can do anything.

Comments

[stick(y)]

Democracy more about marketing then operations; which I tend to associate with the word functional. The key is to make it stick and be sticky in the minds of Americans.

[Don McArthur]

This may turn out to be more about the NSA turning sigint over to a pre-sentient AI than any picayune Executive Branch over-reaching. Review this:

http://www.defensetech.org/archives/002032.html

[John Robb]

Don, I don't think this is picayune. Like all the Sigint guys, I believe this is a very big breach.

Look, it probably was a spider. Start with one known number (or e-mail address or Web site). If that known number calls any other number it is put into the system and the contents of the call are recorded. The process is continually repeated, spreading out. The quantity of numbers accumulates and all calls from those numbers are recorded.

It's completely automated and it gets big, fast. All calls are sifted in an automated way for keywords to identify potentially "hot" nodes that will get more attention (same thing for an e-mail and packets). The only hole in the system is a call to the US (or a e-mail address on a US server or a browser on a US network). It breaks the growing Web. In order to eliminate that hole, they violated the law.

Once the camel has his nose under the tent, the system could radically expand its coverage within the US. All automated, no supervision (except for the program's ever expanding boundary conditions of what is required to fight this war).

[stick(y)]

Don, based on the statements I read, I would have to agree with John... this said, currently I don't see it sticking and being sticky. American simply don't understand or care what tangled webs they weave...

[Don McArthur]

"picayune" was a poor word choice on my part -- the Bush expansion of Executive Branch power worries me greatly. But my [poorly realized] point was my greater concern about this new technology.

What I think is happening is automated speech and keyword recognition on all cross-border communications, filtered through the offspring of Adm. Poindexter's "Total Information Awareness" datamining tools. I think all potential targets from this protocol are being automatically intercepted, and that this process is what makes going to the FISA court unwieldly.

Point this tool at all in-border communications and the potential for abuse is enormous.

[stick(y)]

"Point this tool at all in-border communications and the potential for abuse is enormous."

Ever use news.google.com? They have the following statment at the bottom: "The selection and placement of stories on this page were determined automatically by a computer program."

OK, but the algorithm WERE written by humans that understood the rules of copyright, privacy, etc. If complex systems DO NOT equal blank checks, and not "knowing" they are in criminal violation of the law is stupid. We all know Bush is VERY smart and knows the rules of the game.

[Eric]

Will it have an open API? I'm half kidding. Of course it doesn't: the NSA is sooo web 1.0. But what if it did? How does that change: i) its effectiveness as an intelligence platform?; ii) our perception of its legitimacy?