The "Reasonable Basis" Meme
Apologists for the extra-legal NSA warrantless eavesdropping conspiracy have been pointing in recent days to having a "reasonable basis" to suspect terrorist connections of persons ensnared in the program.
These tools have been intentionally conflating the Constitutionally specified requirement for "probable cause" and the invalid standard of "reasonable basis" or "reasonable suspicion."
We now know where they got the idea. Today's Washington Post outlines a scheme put forward in 2002 by a Republican Senator to change the wording in FISA to lower the standard from "probable cause" to "reasonable suspicion."
The administration has a problem. They argued in 2002 that the change in language was not needed.
The Bush administration rejected a 2002 Senate proposal that would have made it easier for FBI agents to obtain surveillance warrants in terrorism cases, concluding that the system was working well and that it would likely be unconstitutional to lower the legal standard. The proposed legislation by Sen. Mike DeWine (R-Ohio) would have allowed the FBI to obtain surveillance warrants for non-U.S. citizens if they had a "reasonable suspicion" they were connected to terrorism -- a lower standard than the "probable cause" requirement in the statute that governs the warrants.
Now the apologists are talking like the "reasonable basis" change was adopted in fact:
The wiretapping program, ordered by President Bush in 2001, is used when intelligence agents have a "reasonable basis to believe" that a target is tied to al Qaeda or related groups, according to recent statements by administration officials. It can be used on U.S. citizens as well as foreign nationals, without court oversight...
"It's entirely inconsistent with their current position," said Philip B. Heymann, a deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration who teaches law at Harvard University. "The only reason to do what they've been doing is because they wanted a lower standard than 'probable cause.' A member of Congress offered that to them, but they turned it down."
The fools! If they had not tried to be sneaky, and had actually allowed the law to be changed, there would probably be no scandal today.
"The FISA 'probable cause' standard is essentially the same as the 'reasonable basis' standard used in the terrorist surveillance program," said spokeswoman Tasia Scolinos, using the term for the NSA program the White House has adopted. "The 'reasonable suspicion' standard, which is lower than both of these, is not used in either program."
These tools have been intentionally conflating the Constitutionally specified requirement for "probable cause" and the invalid standard of "reasonable basis" or "reasonable suspicion."
We now know where they got the idea. Today's Washington Post outlines a scheme put forward in 2002 by a Republican Senator to change the wording in FISA to lower the standard from "probable cause" to "reasonable suspicion."
The administration has a problem. They argued in 2002 that the change in language was not needed.
The Bush administration rejected a 2002 Senate proposal that would have made it easier for FBI agents to obtain surveillance warrants in terrorism cases, concluding that the system was working well and that it would likely be unconstitutional to lower the legal standard. The proposed legislation by Sen. Mike DeWine (R-Ohio) would have allowed the FBI to obtain surveillance warrants for non-U.S. citizens if they had a "reasonable suspicion" they were connected to terrorism -- a lower standard than the "probable cause" requirement in the statute that governs the warrants.
Now the apologists are talking like the "reasonable basis" change was adopted in fact:
The wiretapping program, ordered by President Bush in 2001, is used when intelligence agents have a "reasonable basis to believe" that a target is tied to al Qaeda or related groups, according to recent statements by administration officials. It can be used on U.S. citizens as well as foreign nationals, without court oversight...
"It's entirely inconsistent with their current position," said Philip B. Heymann, a deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration who teaches law at Harvard University. "The only reason to do what they've been doing is because they wanted a lower standard than 'probable cause.' A member of Congress offered that to them, but they turned it down."
The fools! If they had not tried to be sneaky, and had actually allowed the law to be changed, there would probably be no scandal today.
"The FISA 'probable cause' standard is essentially the same as the 'reasonable basis' standard used in the terrorist surveillance program," said spokeswoman Tasia Scolinos, using the term for the NSA program the White House has adopted. "The 'reasonable suspicion' standard, which is lower than both of these, is not used in either program."
That is a blatant lie. Probable cause for a search warrant requires a signed affidavit by a law enforcement officer that he/she has witnessed lawbreaking on the part of the suspected criminal.
They couldn't possibly have met that standard.
I have been told that the real reason that the administration went around FISA was that they wanted to spy upon so many people that even the compliant FISA court would have balked at both the outrageous number of requests and the lack of supporting evidence required to get the warrants.
So now the administration plays a game of semantics.
posted by Effwit at 11:23 AM
4 Comments:
Monsier Effwit, they're downright funky-fucking uberMasters of Semantics.
By the time anyone finally catches up with them on any point of sinister significance it's blue-lipped too late; by then no collective body of significant mass really gives a congregated shit cuz sexy new semanticized fudge is percolatin' forth from the Admin's jagged bowels.
They've near-enuff perfected the art of using semantics to trip up any corp. media Quijote still out there and actually insane enuff to do their job as it was meant to be done.
Weird reverence as dues remain reflexively paid to official statements ...Gawd, these incessant provisions of benefit-of-a-doubts for official communiqués that fix just enuff of a head start for the Klingoids to carry out their nasty deeds with de facto impunity.
I'm betting these celibate Goons make it to the 8 year finish line without breaking a sweat. (They are celibate, aren't they?!)
But Golly, wouldn't it be sweet surrender to be terribly wrong on that one.
(Woops, looks like it's time for yet another lithium-laced meatball.)
Sounds like, rather than lowering the standard to obtain a warrant, they decided that it would be more expeditious to just avoid having to get warrants altogether. I guess they called it the "Volume Plan". Why follow the law when they could get away with doing whatever the hell they wanted.
Laws? We don't need no stinking laws!
Meatball One:
The asshats in power need to be reminded that "the map is not the territory."
They believe that just because they say something is true, it somehow makes it true.
That's good enough for the WH press corps. And that's good enough for many, if not most, citizen-slaves of the USA.
Of course, I cannot currently match your powers of descriptive language.
About the sex-lives of these worms,
there are all sorts of rumors about abominations that would make your run-of-the-mill practitioner of sex magick blush with embarrassment.
Drew L:
I think you have got it nailed.
I am told that the crim-in-chief went on TV today and basically admitted that he had been told by his advisors that the program couldn't be conducted legally. He supposedly then admitted telling his people to go ahead with the eavesdropping anyway.
I would have loved to see that.
If true, he publicly confessed to a crime.
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