RW Thoughts About FISA From 1995

[AnnieBW]

Step into the wayback machine for a moment, and check out how the Wingers felt about FISA when Clinton was in office...

http://www.monitor.net/monitor/10-30-95/fisa.html

The aftershock of the Oklahoma City bombing sent Congress scurrying to trade off civil liberties for an illusion of public safety. A good ten weeks before that terrible attack, however, with a barely noticed pen stroke, President Bill Clinton virtually killed off the Fourth Amendment when he approved a law to expand the already extraordinary powers of the strangest creation in the history of the federal judiciary.

Then along came Aldrich Ames. The spy case proved a convenient vehicle on which to hitch expansion of state power. It also offered a glimpse at the state-of-the-art domestic counterintelligence techniques that might well be turned on an activist group near you. Following months of electronic and physical surveillance which included a break-in of Ames' car and searches through his office and family trash, FBI agents were finally turned loose in the early morning hours of October 9, 1993. They didn't 'pick' locks like in the movies; they made their own keys. Among other agents in the FBI, the consensus was unanimous: The tech agents were geniuses.

Thanks to a warrant authorized by Attorney General Janet Reno, a team of agents from the sprawling National Security Division had permission to enter the Ames home in Arlington, Va. There was only one minor problem. "The attorney general of the United States does not have the authority to order a warrantless physical search of a citizen's home," argued Professor Jonathan Turley of George Washington University National Law Center. "The Aldrich Ames search in my view was obviously and egregiously unconstitutional."

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Interestingly enough, Ames' lawyer was Plato Cacheris, lawyer for Monica Lewinsky, Larry (AIPAC) Franklin, and Michael Scanlon.

[FreedomAngel82]

1. Send to those on the Judicary committee (aren't they doing this?)

Of course they're hypocrticial. :eyes: And don't you love how they changed the name of the program to make it less scary?