If you're interested in the NSA phone-tapping controversy, The Volokh Conspiracy does a thorough - but still readable - examination of some case law surrounding the issue. I'd recommend this post as the BARE minimum for you to know before attempting to discuss the matter at your next cocktail party or Democratic Underground comment flame.

Having read it, I'm still a bit undecided on the technical legality of it, but more sure that I don't have a problem with it. Here's what I mean:

1) Article 2 of the Constitution gives the President the authority to warrantlessly monitor completely-foreign communications.

2) The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act forbids the warrantless monitoring of domestic communications.

The NSA program warrantlessly monitors communications that involve one end in the US, and one end in a foreign country, and there's no solid legal precedent for saying whether the situation falls under area 1 or area 2.

That's how things ARE.

As for how they SHOULD be, it comes down to the following question:

Do you fall on the side protecting the privacy of US citizens, even if it means extending the protections to their foreign contacts; or do you fall on the side of monitoring foreigners, even if it means monitoring US citizens?

Because we're at war, I'm willing to stand for the second option, mostly because these are marginal cases, and I don't see this escalating toward an approval of purely domestic warrantless wiretaps.

Feel free to disagree in the comments, if you're so inclined.

Meanwhile, (via the Puppy Blender), The American Thinker recalls (and quotes) the New York Times nodding approvingly about Bill Clinton's warrantless eavesdropping via ECHELON.

UPDATE 1-17-06 _Jon of We Swear points out a post at Power Line wherein some more on-point case law suggests that Article II trumps FISA when it comes to warrantless international searches.

Posted by: Harvey at 09:12 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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Glenn Reynolds criticizes high-interest lenders like LoanMax thusly:

"many of the deals offered by a lot of these loan outfits are so bad that it's hard to believe anyone agrees to them understanding what's going on."

Easy for HIM to say. He's a lawyer with an IQ of 170. He understands EVERYTHING.

For the rest of the country - especially the half with sub-100 IQ's and no training in legalese - every legal and financial form is just so much unread gobbledygook. They rely on what they're told by the smiling lender on the other side of the text, and they mostly only want to know two things:

What day of the month are the payments due?

and

How much are they?

Yet Reynolds insists that that's not enough. If borrowers don't care about interest rates, then it's obviously because they're being craftily misled by spiky-toothed loan-sharks:

"The interest rates are so absurdly high that merely spelling out the deal would seem to be evidence that the borrower probably didn't realize what was involved."

Here's a different theory: They realize just fine. However, they don't give a shit.

Take for example, a female acquaintance of mine, who is not named Carol.

She had a credit card from a local furniture store (she LOVED furniture & decorative doo-dads), which she more or less kept maxed out - around $1000. As soon as it got paid down below the credit limit, she'd be back in the store getting more crap.

Making minimum payments every month at 18% interest.

Meanwhile she had about $2000 tucked away in a savings account pulling less than 1% interest.

Personally, I thought she was being stupid, and tried to explain it to her, but she wouldn't listen. The ONLY thing she based her spending decisions on was "Can I make the monthly payments?" Nothing else mattered. She looked at her credit card bill NOT as something that could be paid off, but as a recurring debt, much like water, electricity, or phone bills. Do you ever worry about how to "pay off" your utilities?

HELL no!

So is it really that shocking that some people would view their credit card bills the same way?

And - truth be told - this "living paycheck-to-paycheck" point of view, while short-sighted, isn't quite as moronic as it appears at first glance. As a practical matter, there's no downside to it IF you stay healthy and work (or otherwise maintain a steady income) until you retire or die.

Of course, failing to plan ahead like this makes for a train-wreck if either your health or employment goes awry, but it's NOT the responsibility of LoanMax, or Rent-A-Center, or CheckAdvance, or ANY other high-risk, high-interest lender to ensure that the borrower is living a prudent, forward-thinking life. If borrowers value immediate gratification more than they value getting a good interest rate, that's their option, and it's no sin for the lender to offer them the opportunity to indulge themselves. Just like it's not McDonald's fault for making me fat if I choose to go in there and eat six Big Macs a day.

And let's be honest here. If you outlaw LoanMax, these dim bulbs that actually use their overpriced services will just find another bad deal to piss their money away on, because making imprudent choices is simply what they do.

Posted by: Harvey at 07:23 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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