Former FISA judges say wiretaps were legal
A group of 5 former Intelligence Surveillance Court judges testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday that President Bush did not act illegally by creating a wiretapping program conducted by the National Security Administration (NSA). Bush created the program by Executive Order specifically to intercept international phone calls and e-mails, but only those linked to al-Qaeda and only if at least one end of the conversation is international.
Contrary to what you are hearing from the mainstream media, the Democrats, and RINOs like Senator Arlen Specter, Bush’s Executive Order does not allow interception of purely domestic conversations.
According the to the Washington Times:
The five judges testifying before the committee said they could not speak specifically to the NSA listening program without being briefed on it, but that a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act does not override the president’s constitutional authority to spy on suspected international agents under executive order.
“If a court refuses a FISA application and there is not sufficient time for the president to go to the court of review, the president can under executive order act unilaterally, which he is doing now,” said Judge Allan Kornblum, magistrate judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida and an author of the 1978 FISA Act. “I think that the president would be remiss exercising his constitutional authority by giving all of that power over to a statute.”
The judges, however, said Mr. Bush’s choice to ignore established law regarding foreign intelligence gathering was made “at his own peril,” because ultimately he will have to answer to Congress and the Supreme Court if the surveillance was found not to be in the best interests of national security.
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