Funny little critters
Criticizing Congress for expanding the president’s authority to conduct surveillance operations, a leading civil liberties group said the warrant requirement should be reinstituted.
Lamenting that before Congress recessed in August it passed the Protect America Act, Caroline Fredrickson, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Washington Legislative Office, said Congress passed "legislation to vastly expand the administration’s ability to conduct surveillance on Americans without a warrant."
The Protect America Act allows the attorney general and the director of national intelligence to "authorize the acquisition of foreign intelligence information" without the approval of the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC). The provisions of the bill will expire in six months unless Congress renews them.
"This was a devastating moment for civil liberties and our Constitution," Fredrickson added.
Uh huh
In December 2005, the New York Times disclosed that President Bush had authorized the National Security Agency (NSA) to tap the telephone calls and emails of foreign intelligence targets located abroad who communicate with Americans in the United States.
"The law that was rammed through casts aside the Fourth Amendment almost entirely, sets aside all of the requirements for individualized and particularized suspicion leading to particularized warrants, and allows for mass surveillance," said Jim Sparapani, ACLU senior legislative counsel.
Yet again, the ACLU has forgotten that the the first letterl stands for "American." Foreign nationals are not Americans. The Constitution (something which I would highly recommend they read in full) does not afford Rights to non citizens. I guess that is is what the ACLU does. Go figure.
And I won’t even get into their giving American rights to people who came here illegally.
Of course those who came here illegally should have no rights at all.