Whistleblower exposed NSA wiretapping because ‘this is crazy’
December 19, 2008
Well here’s a new slant on the illegal wiretapping done by the Bush Administration of “terrorists” -U.S. citizens talking to people in the US. This wiretapping is not just over the air talking like wireless telephone, CB radio or such as you’ll see in the interview below. Don’t forget about the 4th amendment:The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause,…..
As you read this don’t forget that the president ordered this wiretapping first in February of 2001 ….long before 9/11Former Justice Department lawyer Thomas Tamm says “we learn that the only way for us to be safe is that the Government breaks the law?”
The Supreme Court held in Katz v. United States (1967), that the monitoring and recording of private conversations within the United States constitutes a “search” for Fourth Amendment purposes, and therefore the government must generally obtain a warrant before undertaking such domestic wiretapping……
The whistleblower who exposed the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program three years ago told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Monday that he was motivated by a sense that “this is crazy.”
Former Justice Department lawyer Thomas Tamm had remained anonymous until he spoke to Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff for an article last week. His appearance with Maddow was his first television interview.
Appearing clearly unaccustomed to public speaking, Tamm emotionally explained, “My entire life, really, was based on trying to enforce the law … and I believed that the law was being broken in the place where I was working.“
Tamm noted that he was not the only one in his office at the Justice Department who was aware of the wiretapping program, but he was the only one who stopped and said, “Wait a second. We assume that what they are doing is illegal? I don’t understand that. Why are we part of that?”
“I just stepped back and said, ‘This is crazy,’” Tamm told Maddow. “This is not what the Department of Justice is all about. This is not what the Constitution is about.”
Tamm would now like to see serious consideration of prosecutions for these crimes. “It offends me that we feel we’re not strong enough as a country, that our laws are not strong enough, that our Congress is not strong enough, that our courts are not strong enough to protect us,” he stated. “And I personally — I’m a prosecutor … I think it should be looked at very seriously.”
This video is from MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show, broadcast Dec. 15, 2008.
Steve Hilton
babybttrfly
Mike