Do you think that any president should have the right to monitor domestic communications without a warrant?
141600
Agreed that the president isn't above the law, but with some many american associations not doing their jobs (INS especially), it has made this an option.  Did you know the terrorists that blew up the world trade center buildings were here for 6 YEARS on an EXPIRED VISA?  Had someone taken care of that, like noticing that and kicking them from our country, the towers might still be there.  But, how many more people have to die by the time you get a warrant?  What more valuable to you?  Your life or your privacy?  That's the real question...
558961
Yes I agree to the empowering of a Federal Judge and I only say this is just because he is the president he still has to obey the laws just like a regular citizen......Then again I would say no about the recording of all communications because recordings can be altered....but having a judge there and signing something now that just leaves what ever happens to a single judge that was there...and can be accountable....recordings don't really do nothing in a trial...
20723
Not only do they listen on cell phones, the Bush Administration has admitted to doing so under direct authorization of the President, without a court order.  Check the link below.
28306
Warrants are still used for wiretaps between individuals within the country who may be aiding or abetting terrorists. Warrants are not required for contacts between terrorists outside the country and individuals within the country (who therefore may also be suspect).  Only Liberals seem to deliberately confuse the issue at every chance.  However that mearly tells us about the way Liberals think during a time of war.
57404
Yes. Privacy rights should be the subject of the next amendment to the U.S. Constitution.  I recognize, of course, that several landmark cases have made privacy a "fundamental" right under the U.S. Supreme Court's interpretation of the U.S. Constitution, but I do not feel safe given the progressively more conservative orientation of the Court.  If and when Judge Alito joins the Court, silenced will be the voice of Justice O'Connor, an important voice of reason on the subject of privacy.  An amendment could explicitly enumerate what privacy rights are protected and inviolable.
975204
NONE!! he may have followed bad information provided to him by the Democrats in the previous administration , but he never violated any laws, as in your most apt profile of the Felon who was president before him.
595987
Absolutely not!!! It can be hacked or intercepted by the government without warrant. Treat the Internet as if it were a sidewalk and say just what you would say and do there.
408643
Depends on who you ask.\n\nThe President Power\n\nVice President Dick Cheney recently told the Washington Post that when the Bush administration entered office, it was determined to reinvigorate the presidency and reverse the steady reduction in executive power and prerogative that had persisted since Watergate. But what reduction could the vice president have had in mind? “The vice president,” noted Sen. John E. Sununu (R-N.H.), “may be the only person I know of that believes the executive has somehow lost power over the last 30 years.”\n\nWhether or not the vice president was correct in his analysis of the state of the presidency in the year 2000, there can be no question that since then George W. Bush has dramatically expanded the powers of the president—primarily though not exclusively in matters pertaining to the war on terror.\n\nOne of the most notorious examples involved the torture of prisoners, a power the administration claimed in the face of law and international agreements to the contrary. “The assertion in the various legal memoranda that the President can order the torture of prisoners despite statutes and treaties forbidding it was another reach for presidential hegemony,” wrote Anthony Lewis in the New York Review of Books. “The basic premise of the American constitutional system is that those who hold power are subject to the law … . Bush’s lawyers seem ready to substitute something like the divine right of kings.”\n\nArguably the greatest controversy of all was the revelation at the end of 2005 that the Bush administration had engaged in domestic surveillance without the necessary warrants. James Bamford, author of two books on the National Security Agency, points out the pertinent aspects of what would appear to be the relevant law: the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), passed in 1978. According to Bamford, then-Attorney General Griffin Bell testified before the intelligence committee that FISA acknowledged no “inherent power of the President to conduct electronic surveillance.” As Bell himself put it, “This bill specifically states that the procedures in the bill are the exclusive means by which electronic surveillance may be conducted.”\n\nIn the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush administration officials spoke again and again of the president’s inherent powers. But the pertinent statute in this case disclaims any such powers and requires that the president proceed according to the guidelines set out by Congress, which involves securing warrants from a special court. As things stand, the president is claiming a right to engage in surveillance of any American, unrestrained by any institutional check, in the service of the war on terror—a war that by its very nature must go on indefinitely and, indeed, that we can never really know is truly over.\n\nAccording to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, the reason the administration did not seek to revise FISA to give the president the clear and unambiguous power to order these wiretaps was that even a Republican Congress would not have gone along. In a Dec. 19 press briefing, the attorney general said, “We have had discussions with Congress in the past—certain members of Congress—as to whether or not FISA could be amended to allow us to adequately deal with this kind of threat, and we were advised that that would be difficult, if not impossible.”\n\nThe administration’s claim, as set forth by the attorney general, is that Congress implicitly agreed to such wiretaps when in the days following Sept. 11 it authorized the use of force against the perpetrators and their allies. Of course, if Congress really had authorized them, it is not clear why it would be so difficult for the administration to persuade Congress to amend FISA accordingly in light of this permission.\n\nGonzales’s argument calls to mind H.L. Mencken’s 1937 “Constitution for the New Deal,” a satirical rewrite of the U.S Constitution, whi
103455
Yes.  An awesome power like the ability to spy on citizens should never be unchecked.  It is ASKING for abuse, whether it be a few bad apples, or a corrupt leadership.  \n\nIt is also the fault of the legislative and judicial branches for not asserting their constitutional duty to re-balance the government and restore our democratic system to balance.\n\nForce the legislature to assert it's control by voting against your Replublican representative who is compromising YOUR SAY in how things are done.  It's the best way to show them how you feel about their lack of spine!
572218
I totally agree with you but he would have to lie under oath to be impeached for his fish story. Here's a bigger reason: He swore to defend, protect and uphold the constitution but he is violating our constitutional right to privacy by tapping our phones. That's only the tip of the ice berg. This administration is the worst in American history.
1181283
Our rights aren't being abused unless we're making phone calls to Al-Sadr over in Iraq. Every action being taken is completely Constitutional, and the only court being passed up (FISA) is unconstitutional in nature because President Carter illegally ceded his power. Nothing going on is abusing my rights, and I am fine with the federal government catching terrorists.\n\nRead More of My Thoughts- http://www.rightontheright.com
1163512
You can't hide anything from Bush now. Don't you remember? We now have domestic spying!
297396
Warrants are required for all wiretaps involving united states citizens.  It is a law called the "Foreign Intelligence Survelliance Act".  It expressly says that it must be followed by all government agencies.  READ IT.  It's in English.  Bush has admitted to breaking that law, but the republican congress has decided not to investigate.\n\nSince there are no warrants, nobody knows if there are terrorists on the other end or not.  It does not have to be legally established.\n\nAlso, when US Attorney General Alberto gonzales testified before congress, he was asked if he could gaurantee that the progam was not being used to monitor calls that originated and ended in WITHIN THE USA, with us citizens on both ends.  He said he could not gaurantee that.
899501
There is a law against threatening the president but condoning it is another thing. The United States has freedom of speech and I don't think it is illegal to say that he deserved it  because everyone has different feelings and opinions about the president. If you are right then we do not have any freedom of speech rights in the US.
1079614
I am not a fan. I think a President ought to be able to think and speak without someone telling him what to say. Talk about having a puppet.
604229
NOPE!! I never did. They want to claim that the president & all other politians should have their privacy. What about the rest of the USA?? We deserve our privacy as well. And the issue with the audio/video...(Patty just shakes her head.)
4832
Apparently it is, seeing as, since it has become known that he has been spying on citizens without warrants, his ratings have shot up.\n\nI agree with you, our personal freedoms are going down the hole because of his crusade, but the people don't seem to care.\n\nIn response to melvin's answer, I just wanted to say that I don't think anyone has a problem with the government spying on non-citizens, it's citizens we have a problem with. He should be getting warrants to gather information about citizens' activity. He can even do it after the fact in FISA court, but he's decided that's not good enough.