Wow, this guy is on "Our" Side

Let's just go the whole hog.

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Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker

If they could know in advance that these were the terrorists that they would be listening to, then they would have no difficulty getting a warrant to listen to them. That scenario is not a concern under anybodyies laws. The problem arises when they start fishing blindly on the offhand chance that they get lucky and happen to find a terrorist. The vast majority of the people they would be listening to would not be terrorists. If you assume that they will therefore, close their ears, then you would not have an issue. However, the laws on wiretapping are there because the temptation to abuse that power has been too great in the past, and it is reasonable to expect that it would be too great in the future.

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Say there was no time to get a warrant then what? Listen or not listen? If not then is there a case you do listen? Does war or imminent attack based on intelligence have any exception?

X

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Originally Posted by Xanith

Say there was no time to get a warrant then what? Listen or not listen? If not then is there a case you do listen? Does war or imminent attack based on intelligence have any exception?

X

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That's a highly specific case, so I can tell you pretty much what would happen. Getting a warrant is not a matter of months for a specific crime. It can be a matter of minutes or hours at most. Therefore, you are speculating that some one gets the word that there is going to be a phone call that they can intercept, and they happen to have the means at hand to intercept it, but the call will come through before they could get a warrant, regardless of how little time it would be. This scenario is really far fetched. Why would they have the equipment, be in place to do the tap, and know that the call is both imminent and significant?

However, assuming that those requirements were met, then they would do the tap whether it was legal or not, and not tell anybody. The information would be inadmissable in a court of law, but so what. Of course, they would have a good reason to keep it a secret, because no rational person would believe that they happened to be there with the equipment unless they were already using it for a truly illegal purpose. Given one days warning, they could obtain a warrant. That would cover anything the NSA would do. Furthermore, the FISA courts have never denied a warrant in their history, so it's not like the listeners would be sweating over whether or not they would get the warrant.

No, in your scenario, they were already doing something illegal, so a bit more doesn't change anything.

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Originally Posted by zaza

I'd call it spying, and if you get caught at that at the diplomatic level, there are serious consequences. Why should the US government be able to spy on me because I'm a private individual and not another sovereign nation?

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Oh yeah, that is right the US is the only country that spies on other countries.

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Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker

. . . The problem arises when they start fishing blindly on the offhand chance that they get lucky and happen to find a terrorist. The vast majority of the people they would be listening to would not be terrorists . . .

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I agree totally.