Jim MacDonald at Making Light writes:
The objection isn’t that Bush is carrying out electronic surveillance on Americans. The objection is that he isn’t bothering to seek a warrant.
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Why not seek warrants? Perhaps because no court would grant them. We’ve seen these abuses in the past: Wiretaps on civil rights leaders, political opponents, anti-war protesters. That’s what the Church Committee found. That’s what the FISAC (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court), a secret court whose purpose is to grant warrants for just such wiretaps as Bush claims he wants, was established to prevent. We know that not all those unwarranted wiretaps were against overseas communications involving foreign nationals: Purely domestic calls were intercepted too.
Today’s news is that one of the judges (U.S. District Judge James Robertson) on that secret court has resigned in protest.
more from: Making Light
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