Dear Senator Salazar:

Currently the President is demanding that Congress pass "FISA Modernization." He has even threatened to  call Congress back into session to force you to give him the bill he wants if Congress adjourns without passing a bill he won't veto.

This is just flat outrageous! I've been practicing law now for 17 years in state and federal courts here in Denver and frankly I don't even know why we need an FISA court to begin with. It seems to me that the regular federal district courts could handle requests for warrantless wiretaps or other surveillance by the government. Every federal district court judge I have come in contact with has the integrity to handle such requests just as normal wiretap requests are handled by our federal courts, and the hearings could be heard in closed court to protect national security where necessary.

Clearly the FISA court was originally set up to provide a rubber-stamp approval for surveillance requests, and it has lived up to it's billing. Until recently, reports in the press have indicated that the FISA court has never turned down a request for surveillance. But, apparently even this court has had enough of the arrogant Bush administration flouting of our laws and constitution and has stated in a secret opinion that the practices of the Bush administration are illegal.

Specifically, according to the LA Times, "One official said the issue centered on a ruling in which a FISA court judge rejected a government application for a "basket warrant" -- a term that refers to court approval for surveillance activity encompassing multiple targets, rather than warrants issued on a case-by-case basis for surveillance of specific terrorism suspects."

Why does the administration NEED basket warrants? Why isn't the normal case by case approach good enough? Answer: as always they want to avoid even cursory oversight by any outside party!

In typical Bush fashion, if the courts say that something that the administration is doing is illegal, instead of changing their practices, they rush to Congress to change the law so that it's now legal, and they scream "national security" holding it over the heads of the Congressmen like some sort of club.

Well, I worked on your campaign and voted for you because I thought as a former attorney general you would put some badly needed respect for our laws and constitution into Washington. Naturally, I was horrified beyond measure when you voted for the torture bill. Now you have another chance to stand up to the Bush administration and just say "NO!"

You can't trust Bush and you can't trust anyone in his administration, certainly NOT our criminal, perjuring attorney general Gonzales, who should be disbarred and sent to prison, not given the power to designate surveillance targets!

Now I learn that the new bill will force telecom and internet companies to give U.S. spy agencies access to telephone calls and emails without court review.

Why should we accept this?

American citizens should not be subjected to ANY electronic surveillance for ANY reason without a court warrant! And there's no reason why the government ought to be able to spy on citizens whenever they are designated as "likely to be out of the country."

Even based on the very limited evidence we now have before us, it's abundantly clear that this program is rife with abuses and violations of law.

For far too long Congress has run scared from every complaint that they aren't doing "enough" in the "fight on terrorism."

This entire program needs to be reviewed and standards for warrantless wiretaps and surveillance of Americans either at home or abroad needs to be tightened, NOT loosened!

Certainly, just because Bush sends his official down to Capitol Hill and claims they "need" a bill is NO reason to roll-over and give in.

Better NO bill than a flawed one. This entire matter needs to be reviewed a considerable length. Congress should certainly not let Bush rush them into hasty action.

If he follows through on his threat to call Congress back into session you ought to adjourn again and tell him in no uncertain terms that you're not going to be rolled again! Tell him that the answer is "NO, we won't grant any such authority to the attorney general" until his perjuring, lying hack of a current attorney general resigns!

Then Congress should take up in earnest what additional safe-guards should be written

On a bigger scale, does this mean you are going to quit supporting the Demos?

Be sure its true when you say I love you
Its a sin to tell a lie
Millions of hearts have been broken
Just because these words were spoken

"radical Moslems who destroy all civil rights in any country/community they gain control of"

As for Hoover, do you approve of wiretapping MLK and attempting to blackmail him? Or CointelPro? Or blackmailing of any politican, including Presidents into keeping him head of the FBI? Do you even know what I am talking about?

The so called fire-wall predated President Clinton:

In a recent Washington Post editorial, Gorelick wrote the restrictions on intelligence sharing date back to 1978- well before she came to Justice. "I did not invent the 'wall,' " she wrote.

See also that known left winger and communist, Sen. Slade Gorton (R-WA)

Additionally, the assertion that the commission failed to report on this program to protect Ms. Gorelick is ridiculous. She had nothing to do with any "wall" between law enforcement and our intelligence agencies. The 1995 Department of Justice guidelines at issue were internal to the Justice Department and were not even sent to any other agency. The guidelines had no effect on the Department of Defense and certainly did not prohibit it from communicating with the FBI, the CIA or anyone else.
    Congress created the walls that were in place before September 11 -- such as the National Security Act's prohibition on U.S. intelligence agency spying on Americans and the Posse Comitatus Act -- that have nothing to do with the Department of Justice memo. The Defense Department's own directives on sharing such information date from the 1980s. It is not clear that those laws would have prohibited sharing information in this instance.
    The fact is that the Justice Department guidelines sought to encourage sharing in a way that was consistent with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA. FISA enabled the government to conduct surveillance for foreign intelligence purposes under a lesser standard than typical criminal surveillance. To keep this power in check, the courts prohibited the use of intelligence wiretaps unless their "primary purpose" was intelligence gathering rather than criminal prosecution.
    Then-Attorney General John Ashcroft's department reissued and reaffirmed those guidelines in 2001, before September 11.
    Even when the Patriot Act eliminated the "primary purpose" test, it took an appellate court ruling to permit the Justice Department to change those rules.
    So attributing these procedures to Ms. Gorelick is wrong. If the Ashcroft Justice Department couldn't eliminate them with a stroke of a pen, Ms. Gorelick could not have created them with the stroke of a pen, either. (emphasis added)

What if Bush acted on the Memo Bin Laden Determined to Strike US, instead of looking at the messenger and saying

"All right. You've covered your a$$, now."?

And somehow I don't remember that assessment you gave... if you are trying to bring back my comments re whar might happen during our retreat from Iraq, I seem to remember you were incapable of quoting me correctly.

They're the perfect response to a populace that's willing to trade its freedoms for safety. They're afraid to go against Bush at 25% because that's what their constituents evidently expect of them. I can't conclude anything else at this point.

"The 60-28 roll call by which the Senate voted to temporarily give President Bush expanded authority to eavesdrop on foreign terrorists without court warrants."

And everyone else whose electronic communications are routed through those (and who knows what other) U.S. circuits.  Are all of those communications by "foreign terrorists"?