Word: wiretaps
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...should have nearly total control of Executive Branch agencies and resist any incursion on that power by Congress. And in a 1984 memo recently released by the National Archives, Alito--at the time a lawyer with the Reagan Administration Justice Department--argued that government officials who order illegal domestic wiretaps can be immune from lawsuits. The case in question arose in 1970, when then Attorney General John Mitchell allowed the FBI to wiretap Vietnam War protesters suspected of plotting to kidnap National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger...
...took Risen more than a year to get the story into print--and not before President Bush personally implored Times editors not to publish Risen and Lichtblau's account of how Bush authorized the National Security Agency to wiretap telephone and e-mail communications inside the U.S. without court-sanctioned warrants. The Times ran the article on Dec. 16, touching off a blogospheric scrum: conservatives accuse the Times of aiding terrorists by revealing secrets of U.S. spycraft while liberals say the paper caved to White House pressure by not dropping the bombshell sooner. At the center of the article...
...interview, Risen said the Times' choice to run the wiretap story when it did was "not my decision and had nothing to do with me." But he said the paper "has performed a great public service by printing it, because this policy is something the nation should debate." State of War provides an account of the origins and scope of the wiretap program that basically repeats the revelations contained in Risen and Lichtblau's stories in the Times. But the book also argues that the NSA's eavesdropping policy shows the extent to which the war on terrorism has spurred...
...efficiency demands bypassing the courts. There again, the clear language of the law does them in. Even pre--Patriot Act law provided a very robust mechanism through which a President, facing what he believes is such an emergency that the short time needed to secure court approval for a wiretap would obviate the need for one, can order a tap without prior court approval as long as he eventually gets an O.K. within three days. If that degree of flexibility does not suit a President, it is hard to imagine what provision would. And if the President thought...
...chief justice also has a variety of duties outside the Supreme Court. He selects judges to serve on various judicial committees, including the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, often called the “wiretap court.” Beyond that, the chief justice holds a variety of other duties, including presiding at impeachment hearings, swearing in the President, and chairing the Judicial Conference of the United States, the top administrative body of the federal court system...