How would you have liked to have this indecisive "leader" as your commanding officer? This guy ruled NATO for a while. He didn't have the stomach for finishing GWI either. I've never seen why people find him so great. He's no different from McCain, Kerry, or the others. I guess I shouldn't be so personally negative on Christmas, but this guy, like McCain, really gets my panties in a wad.

I can see the campaign slogan now:
Powell, a blacker shade of McCain

I don't see the problem. He said he was ok with the eavesdropping, but thought it would've been better to do it with court approval. No self-contradiction there.

I have to say I agree with him too.

Considering how regularly things are leaked to the press I'm not surprised that Bush didn't get the warrants if they didn't need them. We're trying to win a war, not a popularity contest.

I also agree with Colin Powell on this.
As far as GWI goes, he went as far as his Commander-in-Chief allowed him.

I don’t think he has ever cared about civil liberties – he sees his job as protecting us, not protecting our liberties.
merry christmas

He does. He just gets in a rush sometimes.

4th amendment: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

Apparently much of the eavesdropping has been on the internet. Most of us on this list probably have at least few tags automatically generated based on comments we've made. Somehow, things are so dangersous now that we have to throw out the constitution? I don't buy it.

Ben Franklin "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

Ben Franklin "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

Of course, you overlook the fact that Ben Franklin didn't have to worry about suitcase nukes when he said that.

I've concluded a long time ago that Mr. Powell is merely the result of affirmative action, rather than being an extraodinary human being. He's a bonehead.

4th amendment: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

Gee, where is any of what is going on "unreasonable?" EVERY president going back to FDR has used the Presidential power GWB has in this issue. The Dims are hanging themselves with their insistance to fight the president here.

Judges have no particular training or experience in military matters, national security, or intelligence gathering; they are bound by the rules of criminal procedure (including the Constitutional probable-cause requirement); they have no constitutional responsibility for national security; and their proper loyalty is to the law, not to the security of the nation.

So naturally, the Democrats want to give them ultimate control of military intelligence-gathering operations.

David Tell reminds us that we tried it the Dems' way before 9/11. It didn't work.

Every time I get completely disgusted with the Republicans, the Democrats remind me why I have to keep voting for them anyway.

[4th amendment] "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

The operative word here is "unreasonable." Has the President conducted "unreasonable" searches. In my humble O, he has NOT.

Powell supports the surveillance, but he thinks Bush should have gotten FISA warrants. Charles Krauthammer, I believe, had a similar take.

It's a reasonable question to ask why the administration, if it was doing nothing illegal, failed to fully utilize FISA as a resource.

Byron York at NRO offers a fairly compelling case that the administration tried repeatedly to make use of the FISA process, but found it to be much too slow and cumbersome.

People who say we are throwing out the Constitution are viewing this through a lense of courts and lawyers. Foriegn electonic surveilance is a military act performed by an agency of the DOD aimed at foreign enemies. While it gets complicated when transmissions begin to include US persons, if they are communicating with a foreign power or a terrorist organization, they still are a focus of Presidential war making power. There are constitutional grounds for what President Bush is doing to our enemies, foreign and domestic. Every president has constitutionally exercised this power.

How easy is it to formulate a warrant for mining vast amounts of data? This isn't law enforcement where there is necessarily a targeted investigation. The point is to try and find targets in the first place.

Powell knows better.

The garden might chance a spring awakening!

Even us liberals aren't saying there shouldn't be surveillance of suspected terrorists, just that it should be done within the law. That's what Powell is saying, too. "Follow FISA regulations" does not equal "no eavesdropping."

Why is that so hard to grasp? Does liberty involve too much nuance for you?

ScottM makes some excellent points by describing the role and expertise of Judges. No one has gainsaid his points.

If the president was excercising a Constitutional power (conducting warrantless wiretaps) to carry out a Constitutional responsibility (to protect the nation) why does he need anyone's approval and why should he seek the approval of someone who has no expertise in the area of national security.

I think winning the war as quickly as possible and with the fewest possible casualties is more important than going to the wall to protect the civil liberties of those communicating with terrorists.

So folks. Just how do you think this eavesdropping occurs? All, and I mean all, overseas telecommunications, including phones, email, and radio are monitored and/or recorded on computer hard drives or tapes. Computers listen for voiceprints, keywords, or other clues and when they hear something interesting, they record it and flag it for review by humans. Up to this point, everyone and everything calling anyone or anything overseas has been listened to, and possibly recorded.

Now a human or a computer has to translate the signals, and evaluate whether there is anything interesting to it. Hopefully by this point we know where it originated and terminated to/from. This is the first point at which you might identify an American as being involved. It is already recorded, and must be listened to before any warrants are ever possible to be obtained. Therefore, it is not whether or not you captured the intelligence. It is what do you do with it.

If you recognize a terrorist event or communication (and it surely isn't guaranteed you would know it without lots of further analysis by this point), the only thing you might do is go to a FISA judge to get an after the fact warrant. So who do you ask for the warrant on? What if you can't identify the voice on the American end of the phone? Maybe you already know what the terrorist said, or you suspect he said. What if he is using a code? Do you have to break the code first, read the mail, and then get the warrant? There is no civil liberties answer here. And what are you going to say about the Brits, French, Germans, Indians, Pakis, Egyptians and everyone else who monitors foreign phone calls and spies on US citizens calling their borther in Iran or Bosnia? Why is it OK for them to listen, but not for Americans to listen? Because we can't do anything about them? Well guess what, if we can't monitor what they say to terrorists in America, then we'll never be able to stop them.

This is intelligence gathering. It is not something you use to prosecute criminals in court. It is something you use to kill terrorists DEAD. Intelligence in wartime has no place in a courtroom. It should be used by military men to prosecute war against the enemies of the country. And that includes the spies living in the US. Because that is what they are if they talk to terrorists.

What part of WAR don't you understand?

Subsunk

Very well said, Subsunk (and others).

If procedure is more important than doing what we need to, then perhaps we have already lost. Reminds me a lot of the faction that would like to get things done through diplomacy. In certain issues, guns speak louder than resolutions.

The debate, I think, is a matter of what would be better rather than what must be done. As such, the debate should end. No good will come of it; all it does is harm.

As it stands, I have yet to hear of a single person or entity that has suffered from this policy. Mountains out of molehills.

And, for the record, if a Muslim says he/she has suffered from this policy, I will demand a thorough and documented investigation as to whether he/she has, in fact, been affected. Some people are not above spewing forth falsehoods for their own agendas. Most Muslims I know are unreasonably paranoid.

I will also say, as someone likely under surveillance, that I assent to the Government's policies: they are welcome to track, record, analyze, and spy on anything I may do, say, or write. I am confident enough in my innocence.

(NSA: read my resume. If you see anything you can use, call or email me, okay?)

I believe that most people commenting on this issue are ignoring or just don't know that the warrant has to be done within 72 hours after the eavesdropping begins. That seems quite enough time to do things in a timely and responsible manner.

The problem with warrants is that a warrant is specific to a telephone number. This won't work because the terrorists use multiple cell phones. They use a phone, pitch it out, get another, talk, pitch it and the cycle starts over.
Bush critics seem to have a hard time understanding this. My advice to them is very simple---wake up and realize that the world has changed.

Why do people assume the Government wants to act illegally? If getting a warrant was so easy, I believe they would do it. If they are not doing it, maybe there are other issues involved.

Plus, warrants would be needed for prosecution; these programs are not interested in prosecution: they exist to cull intelligence on terrorist activities and networks to disrupt them.

A professor of mine remarked that a problem with this new system of warrants--he remarked about the Patriot Act, but I'm sure it applies to the domestic intelligence programs--is what should the Government do if the information they get does not correspond to what the warrant is for? What if they get a warrant, even after starting the surveillance, for terrorist activity but it turns out the target is a big-time drug dealer or mob boss? The evidence the Government has obtained can be thrown out because drug trafficking or mob racketeering are not why the warrant was issued.

My point, in short, is that there may be other issues, of which we do not know or are not intimate with, involved because of which the Government is not seeking warrants. They are not stupid, nor are they out to deprive us of our rights (unduly, at least).

As far as I am concerned, if it helps our counterterrorism activity, it's good. At least something is being done.

You all remember the Muslim Zacarias Moussaoui who only wanted to learn how to fly a plane but not to land one? The flight school he was attending called the FBI. He is often referred to as the 20th hijacker. The FISA court refused to allow the FBI to search his laptop. If they had 9/11 may never have happened. Asking the FISA court for a warrant is not the answer, they have proven themselves a failure.

Thank you, tracelan. I was not aware of that: that certainly puts things into perspective.

To buttress what tracelan said above, this story will be useful: Secret court modified wiretap requests: Intervention may have led Bush to bypass panel.

Quite alarming, frankly.

Muslihoon--
Thank you. Hope to see you again sometime soon. Keep up the good fight.
Those days were ruled by judges left over from Clinton/Reno who refused to enforce "anything"! The funny thing is that was what they were supposed to do as the head of the executive branch.

Way to go Muslihoon, the Dems want us to believe that the Administration just wants to spy on all of us. They don't really care about civil liberties, they think they can damage GWB by crying about our civil liberties being denied by these wiretaps. In fact one of the Air America talk shows today said "GWB is spying on you and your neighbors".

Never in the history of man has so few did so much damage to so many. This is the result of national media that has only one agenda - damage the President.