Joe Klein's article from 1/8/06... NSA and liberal Democrats.

[Blue Rectangle]

The media does a great job of spinning information in a way favorable to Republicans. It's quite a shame.  This article is a joke and an example of reporting at its worst.

Don't blame the media for the lack of a coherent message from your party.  The media's job is to report, not to provide a balancing message against the majority party.

The article is dead-on accurate in its assessment of the Democrats' problem.  It is not "reporting"--it is an op-ed piece.  I just hope more Democrats regard it as a joke, rather than constructive criticism.

[Blue Rectangle]

[=Don't blame the media for the lack of a coherent message from your party.  The media's job is to report, not to provide a balancing message against the majority party.

The problem with the article is that it misrepresents the facts in order to arrive at a biased conclusion.

The writer has the right to offer whatever opinion he wants, but the rest of the article is highly inaccurate.

The article consists of opinions on news reports.  What facts were misrepresented?

[Blue Rectangle]

OK, so Democrats support warrantless wiretaps on foreign terrorists, but not on U.S. citizens?  What if there is an international phone call from one to the other?  Do they support or oppose warrantless monitoring of those communications?

[Blue Rectangle]

OK, so Democrats support warrantless wiretaps on foreign terrorists, but not on U.S. citizens?  What if there is an international phone call from one to the other?  Do they support or oppose warrantless monitoring of those communications?

I guess thats where the emergency 72 hour provision comes into play.  72 hours to gather whatever information you need, but after that you must get a warrant.  Im not 100% sure though, just throwing it out there.

No warrant is required for international communications.

The Democrats have not provided a clear answer to this question: should a warrant be required to monitor an international phone call between a known foreign terrorist and a U.S. citizen who may or may not be suspected of terrorist ties?

[Blue Rectangle]

The Democrats have not provided a clear answer to this question: should a warrant be required to monitor an international phone call between a known foreign terrorist and a U.S. citizen who may or may not be suspected of terrorist ties?

No.

You said no, but the Democratic leadership characterizes this as "domestic spying on U.S. citizens" and opposes it (I believe, they have not been clear).

Is there evidence that anything other than this occurred?

[Blue Rectangle]

I am not a lawyer, but my reading of FISA is that the law does not apply to surveillance conducted outside of the U.S. so long as at least one of the parties involved in the communication is not in the U.S.  The president may monitor all international electronic communications without needing to even inform Congress or the FISA court.

The Democrats seem to be defining "domestic spying on U.S. citizens" as any monitoring of phone or email in which at least one of the parties is a U.S. citizen.  Therefore, this definition overlaps with the case above that is not under FISA's jurisdiction.