Poll: 73% Oppose Warrantless Wiretapping

August 13, 2007
Poll: 73% Oppose Warrantless Wiretapping

By a 73%-22% margin, Americans overwhelmingly oppose George Bush's efforts to wiretap Americans' phone calls and emails without a search warrant, according to a Democrats.com telephone poll of 1,006 adults conducted from August 8-12, 2007 by ICR.

This is the first national poll since September 2006 asking Americans about warrantless wiretapping of Americans, which has been ignored by corporate media polls despite headline coverage. Democrats.com has also conducted several polls about impeachment, another topic corporate media pollsters refuse to touch because of opposition from the Bush Administration.

Justice releases domestic spying papers

February 1, 2007
Justice releases domestic spying papers

Staffers said the push for access was driven by Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-El Paso, and Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va. — the heads of the House and Senate intelligence panels, respectively — who warned Justice Department officials they would face congressional subpoenas if they did not turn over the records.

Reyes and other lawmakers said they would push for other documents the administration has refused to turn over, including the order creating the NSA program in October 2001.

FBI turns to broad new wiretap method

January 30, 2007
FBI turns to broad new wiretap method

One reason why the full-pipe technique raises novel legal questions is that under federal law, the FBI must perform what's called "minimization."

Federal law says that agents must "minimize the interception of communications not otherwise subject to interception" and keep the supervising judge informed of what's happening. Minimization is designed to provide at least a modicum of privacy by limiting police eavesdropping on innocuous conversations.

EFF's Bankston disagrees. He said that the FBI is "collecting and apparently storing indefinitely the communications of thousands--if not hundreds of thousands--of innocent Americans in violation of the Wiretap Act and the 4th Amendment to the Constitution."

Wiretap review plan is still unclear

January 19, 2007
Wiretap review plan is still unclear

Disputing the suggestion that the warrantless program, run by the National Security Agency, had been "terminated," Gonzales said, "It took us a period of time to develop what we thought would be an acceptable legal argument that would be acceptable to the FISA court."