Just a thought! Does a sitting president have the ability to order a covert action such as wire tapping or other surveillance activities that will be completely off the record? Of course, if the results of the surveillance is used for legal reasons, it would need to be on the record. However, the president may want information simply to make some decision without having to explain the to the public the real reason for that decision.
We have all seen in movies where a "secret agent" is sent into a situation in which he is told the government will deny any knowledge of him and his mission if he gets caught. It this just in the movies, or does this really happen. If it does really happen, then is it really so far fetched that a president can order "off the record" surveillance?
From Wiki:
The
NSA warrantless surveillance controversy ("warrantless wiretapping") concerns
surveillance of persons within the United States during the collection of allegedly
foreign intelligence by the U.S.
National Security Agency (NSA) as part of the touted
war on terror. Under this program, referred to by the Bush administration as the
terrorist surveillance program,
[1] part of the broader
President's Surveillance Program, the NSA was authorized by executive order to monitor, without
search warrants, the
phone calls, Internet activity (Web, e-mail, etc.), text messaging, and other communication involving any party believed by the NSA to be outside the U.S., even if the other end of the communication lies within the U.S. However, it has been discovered that all U.S. communications have been digitally cloned by government agencies, in apparent violation of unreasonable search and seizure.
Critics claim that the program was an effort to silence critics of the
Bush Administration and its handling of several controversial issues during its tenure. Under public pressure, the Bush administration allegedly ceased the warrantless wiretapping program in January 2007 and returned review of surveillance to the
FISA court.
[2] Subsequently, in 2008
Congress passed the
FISA Amendments Act of 2008, which relaxed some of the original FISA court requirements.
During the
Obama Administration, the NSA has allegedly continued operating under the new FISA guidelines despite campaign promises to end warrantless wiretapping.
[3] However, in April 2009 officials at the
United States Department of Justice acknowledged that the NSA had engaged in "overcollection" of domestic communications in excess of the FISA court's authority, but claimed that the acts were unintentional and had since been rectified.
[4]
Also from Wiki:
The
FISA Amendments Act of 2008 (also called the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 Amendments Act of 2008,
H.R. 6304, enacted 2008-07-10) is an
Act of Congress that
amended the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
[1] It has been used as the legal basis for
mass surveillance programs disclosed by
Edward Snowden in 2013, including
PRISM.
[2]
That's just a small sample of what we know. What do we not know? Well, that is the million dollar question. Just remember this:
Me: Google, when was the first stealth fighter flight?
Google: June 18, 1981
Me:When was the stealth fighter announced to the public?
Wiki: The
Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk is a single-seat,
twin-engine stealth
attack aircraft that was developed by
Lockheed's secretive
Skunk Works division and operated by the
United States Air Force (USAF). The F-117 was based on the
Have Blue technology demonstrator, and was the first operational aircraft to be designed around
stealth technology.
The maiden flight of the Nighthawk took place in 1981, and the aircraft achieved initial operating capability status in 1983.[1]The Nighthawk was shrouded in secrecy until it was revealed to the public in 1988. (emphasis added)
So, yeah, I think there is a thing or two we don't know about.
Sarcasm understood.
