The alternative is requiring a warrant, which means following the Constitution. Due process doesn’t disappear because you want it to. Even if someone is supposedly a terrorist or criminal.
FISA is Congress exercising the only authority it has here, which is oversight & regulation. You could argue FISA should be stricter, but it can’t extend the Constitutional reach of the Fourth Amendment, nor can it contract it the way many in this thread believe it’s somehow doing.
Also, free nations should have higher standards than "Not a citizen? Too bad, anything goes."
Congress can regulate the process that must be followed, the documentation that must be made, even require judicial review at the program level to ensure it doesn’t also record traffic that is Constitutionally protected. That’s what FISA is.
But it can’t ban that tapping, nor can it require the executive to get a warrant for a particular otherwise Constitutional intercept from an Article 3 court.
Which part of this do you think is incorrect?
But let's ignore that for a moment and move on to the next point. Your example is still hoovering up communications from citizens who are supposed to be protected by due process of law. En masse. How does this not run afoul of the law?
The problem is compounded by the fact that the internet blurs geographical borders. Wholly domestic communications can and does end up crossing borders. Also, I'd bet a large part of our communications aren't even between people. The majority of the traffic likely are sent to or from computer programs. They happen without most people even realizing it, but contains highly personal information. The simple telegraph analogy doesn't translate well to the internet.
What's more, there's currently no meaningful system in place to prevent abuse. And no, a rubber stamp court authorizing dragnet surveillance isn't it.
The poster was roundly criticized for being correct.
What I keep trying to explain is that this FISA vote can’t address your concerns one way or the other. If you disagree, I wish you’d explain how.
Whether the FISA vote can fix all the problems isn't the point. The problem is that current surveillance practices looks illegal to begin with.
Do you disagree?
https://www.npr.org/2013/06/21/193578367/calling-it-metadata...
That's not correct at all. It would only fall under federal overview if it's commercial (Article 1 section 8 clause 3 of the constitution gives congress the right to regulate commerce with foreign nations).
The Feds don't just get to do anything they want by default. All powers that aren't specifically given to the feds are defaulted to either the states or the people.
I think it would be a lot harder to do that with speech though. Maybe you could argue that the telegraph line itself impacts international copper markets or something, but there are non-tangible based communication methods.
There is some judicial oversight in the FISA court of course. What's the argument for why congress can legislate that, but not a more typical warrant?
The FISA court exists to ensure that the executive is not operating outside his Constitutional authority, not as a gatekeeper for use of that authority at all in any instance.
This is not true. The constitution explicitly reserves the power to declare war or enact treaties to Congress. Neither the military nor federal law enforcement can spend a single dime, or even exist, without Congressional approval. If the budget allocates no money to mass surveillance, no money is available to conduct mass surveillance.
What they can’t do is allow them to spend money on foreign surveillance, but only if an Article 3 court gives them a warrant.
Do you have any case law to cite for this, or it's just your favored argument that you'd hope a court would agree with? You are talking about it like it's settled law. Cites?
Also, note that the cases you are talking about to which the law applies have someone in the USA involved in the wiretapped conversation as well. It wouldn't shock me if the courts -- although probably not the current supreme court, but you never know -- simply said it required a warrant constitutionally at some point in the future. It's certainly not obvious that you can wiretap an American without a warrant as long as they are talking to someone overseas.
Or funding the Department of Justice, but with the proviso that any nominee for Attorney General must be over age 60.
The power of the purse is not unlimited.
You're proposing an alternative where the executive gets to decide how money is spent. As if mass surveillance, which is a waste of money, has to be funded in order to fund ordinary investigations.
The executive is the weakest branch. It has almost no powers of its own, and shouldn't. It's checks and balances. For something to happen, the executive has to want to do it and Congress has to fund it. Not one or the other; both.
Isn't this about the opposite issue, whether Congress can delegate control over funding to the executive? They were trying to get the executive to do the job of Congress and control the CFPB's funding.
Congress can't pass a law violating the Fourth Amendment. They can certainly pass a law constraining the executive from doing something that is otherwise constitutional, if the courts are reading the Fourth Amendment too narrowly.
They could also straightforwardly require the FISA court to publish its opinions, or have the same cases heard in ordinary federal courts with public accountability for the decisions. There is nothing in the constitution requiring secret courts.