said by woody7 :

He could have gone to the "FISA" court and had a chance to make this legal. He chose to not do so.

said by pnh102 :

So let's say that President Obama receives actionable intelligence that something bad is going to happen. He acts on this intelligence and neutralizes a threat. Being a good president, he goes to the FISA court to get a blessing for this but oops! The court tells him that he did not cross all the i's and dot all the t's on his order, so what he did was illegal. We might even have to send the people who carried out this order to prison because they did something "illegal."

said by pnh102 :

So let's say that President Obama receives actionable intelligence that something bad is going to happen. He acts on this intelligence and neutralizes a threat. Being a good president, he goes to the FISA court to get a blessing for this but oops! The court tells him that he did not cross all the i's and dot all the t's on his order, so what he did was illegal. We might even have to send the people who carried out this order to prison because they did something "illegal."

What happens the next time there's a threat? Should Obama let it happen? Would US military or other services stick their necks out to prevent a potential attack knowing that they themselves risk prosecution?

The main problem with putting any court in the way of the President engaging in actions against foreign terrorists is just that type of scenario. We did not have FISA courts until the late 1970s, how did presidents prior to then handle such matters? They certainly did not wait for some outside authority to bless their actions, they just took care of business.

The only real "outrage" over Bush bypassing FISA comes from the looney left that simply seeks to attack him at every possible opportunity. I am sure that when Obama has to deal with a crisis and decides to sidestep FISA, most of Obama's supporters aren't going to care.

said by pnh102 :

The only real "outrage" over Bush bypassing FISA comes from the looney left that simply seeks to attack him at every possible opportunity. I am sure that when Obama has to deal with a crisis and decides to sidestep FISA, most of Obama's supporters aren't going to care.

said by scantor :

How about you give up your civil rights, and I'll sign a waiver letting the president go ahead and let me get blown up, since I still value mine.

The law is the law. Your hypothetical straw man aside, you don't get a free pass because you had a good reason. You risk the fallout and then argue to the judge why you did it. If the reason was justified, chances are you'll get away with it. That's how the system works. That's why torture is illegal; the risk of doing it should be such that it won't be done unless the bomb is ticking, not just because your boss is a sadist.

It used to be that it was considered a tenet of the right that executive power had limits. Liberty and all that. That's where the word libertarian comes from. It's sad and pathetic what people have come to, but I'll happily stand with the loony left, regardless of who the president is. And I'm more than proud to stand on the opposite side from you.

said by pnh102 :

So let's say that President Obama receives actionable intelligence that something bad is going to happen.

said by TKJunkMail :

Good post. The whistleblower in this case should go to prison.

said by ross :

Really? How do you feel about someone outing a covert CIA operative? Should they be shot, or given life in prison? What do you think?

said by mech1164 :

People here don't even know what's in their own Constitution. Yet they proclaim that whatever it is must be against the law.