[IP] more on Could NY Times face a treason trial?

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Dan Shoop <shoop@iwiring.net>
Date: January 24, 2006 4:55:40 PM EST
To: dave@farber.net, ip@v2.listbox.com
Subject: Re: [IP] more on Could NY Times face a treason trial?

At 2:23 PM -0500 1/24/06, David Farber wrote:
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: Richard Perlman <perl@lucent.com>
> Date: January 24, 2006 2:15:02 PM EST
> To: David Farber <dave@farber.net>, ip@v2.listbox.com
> Subject: Re: [IP] Could NY Times face a treason trial?
>
> Dave:
>
> Let me get this straight.  The President is not guilty of violating  
> the law
> by ordering wire taps, because they are "legal" given some  
> understanding of
> Congress' Iraq resolution.  But, the NYT might be guilty of treason  
> for
> divulging the, presumably legal, actions of the President.
>
> 22 years later than Orwell predicted.

Considering how it is the mission of the NSA to intercept all  
communications traffic that enters or leaves our shores, no matter if  
the originator or recipient is a US Citizen or not, I find it hardly  
surprising that this is even newsworthy. Traffic from an American  
citizen on US soil to a foreign national abroad is notable SIGINT  
traffic that doesn't require a warrant because it is monitoring the  
foreign national. Transversely, traffic from a foreign national  
abroad to an American citizen on US soil is also notable SIGINT  
traffic as it is also monitoring a foreign national.

Now if the NSA was intercepting domestic traffic, or it was  
intercepting traffic between two American citizens (one of which was  
on US soil), that would be a different matter entirely.

Moreover, intercepts have been used in *peacetime* as part of  
executive power. They were most used under Democratic Presidents.  
Jimmy Carter was a notable example. Given the war-time posturing of  
the current administration it would seem as if they'd have even more  
of a case of support than less.
--

-dhan

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dan Shoop                                                   AIM: iWiring
Systems & Networks Architect                     http://www.iwiring.net/
shoop@iwiring.net                                 http://www.ustsvs.com/
1-646-217-4725

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iWiring provides systems and networks support for Mac OS X, unix, and
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