>>FBI tapes are indeed submissable in court if they are obtained legally.
>>It was an investigation into the Governor of Illinois, not a Senator or Obama. It just happened that he was caught trying to 'sell' Obama's senate seat which will be vacant when Obama assumes office of the President.
>>Don't know what you mean by 'domestic research.' Research on what or whom?
>
>Well it was figurative speach {s}, translating to subject of wiretaping in this case (Governor of Illinois, although I have hard time understanding titles/hierarchy). Wiretaping of foreign embassies, politicians, offices etc would be 'foreign research'. But of course there is no such thing right? {g}
>
>Back to domestic 'thingy'
>So FBI wiretapes drug dealer, and they hear he orders someone to get killed and that someone actually gets killed,
>can they put him behind bars ? Or they needed some kind of warrant to start wiretaping (like for entering premises)
>to make it legal ? If so, who grants such warrant ? Especially when high politics subjects are concearned.

They have to have sufficient cause (evidence) to have a wiretap. Once they do, they can record and film and use it in a court of law. Those types of tapes are routinely used in cases where someone hires someone to kill someone else and the goal is to catch them planning it on tape so it can be prevented - they can arrest the individual and prevent the killing.

For the wire tapping of foreign embassies and politicians and offices, that falls into another category. Your use of the term 'research' threw me off. It's not 'research.' There are laws for that as well. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act covers that as well as some other laws. If you are interested you can look it up on the web.

Of course, when it comes to taping or filming foreign officials, what is done by most governments of the world and what is legal are too different things. While a lot of what the U.S. does (or people think it does) is on tv shows and highly dramatized and things that are not really done are shown so people believe it is done, you would be amazed at what other governments do. The U.S. actually has more laws that are obeyed regarding that than other countries. They stem from international agreements.

Anymore information than that you will have to get on your own.... :o)

After your joke about the shoes, I was thinking that if most of the citizens in this country had starting throwing shoes at President Bush, while they would have been arrested, perhaps the Senate and Congress would have done their job and impeached him.