Monday, January 23, 2006

White House steps up defense of domestic eavesdropping

Bush also said he kept key members of Congress informed.

"You know, it's amazing that people say to me, 'Well, he was just breaking the law.' If I wanted to break the law, why was I briefing Congress?" Bush said, apparently referring to former Vice President Al Gore's accusation last week that he was "breaking the law" by authorizing the program.

"These are not phone calls within the United States," Bush said. "This is a phone call of an al Qaeda, known al Qaeda suspect, making a phone call into the United States.

"I'm mindful of your civil liberties, and so I had all kinds of lawyers review the process. We briefed members of the United States Congress ... about this program."


Well, I don't know about you, but I feel much better knowing that he had all kinds of lawyers and congressmen looking over the program. Of course, the lawyers work for the executive branch or the NSA, and I wonder just exactly which congressmen he briefed on this? If he was so sure of his legal footing, why didn't he get approval from the actual people the law requires?

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5 comments:

John Howard said...

The law is for pussies. We're at war, damn it! I really like this part:

"This is a phone call of an al Qaeda, known al Qaeda suspect, making a phone call into the United States.

He keeps saying those things like his word is good for anything. But, if that's true, there's absolutely no reason he can't use the legal way to do it. Asshole.

John Howard said...

Yes, when there is probable cause, and extenuating circumstances. Also, there is oversight if that happens. All three of those things are lacking in the case of Bush's spying.

It's not one person, it's everyone. What if the Government required you to send a report of your daily activities? That wouldn't hurt anyone, either. That's a lousy argument. tIf the President is not subject to the law, then he can do whatever he wants. When he wants to break some law that you value, it will be hard for you to argue against it, when you're in favor of him breaking it in this case.

This power was not given to the President in the Constitution and the notion that it was is disingenuous.

I don't care what Clinton did, he is not out President anymore. Why is it that Bush supporters are now so in love with Clinton? Anyway, I don't know the details of what you're talking about, but if your characterization of it is correct, then I'm just as opposed to it as I am to Bush's spying. It doesn't matter who the President is, I don't want them having unchecked power, even if it's a guy I support, which is where I differ from Bush supporters, who seem to worship him and support anything he does simply because he does it. There is no question that if Clinton did anything approaching this, the same people who support Bush doing it would be calling for impeachment. And ironically, that's why they shouldn't support it when Bush does it, because giving these powers to the office will one day mean that they are used by someone who they don't support.

John Howard said...

Oversight, you know like if they did it when they shouldn't have, they can be held accountable. It's a pretty simple concept.

You don't have the power to execute a warrantless search whenever you feel like it for no reason, and when asked about it by your superiors to not tell them what you did or why you did it. That's what the President is doing.


I realize that no one is asking you to do that, it is a hypothetical situation that I would assume you would object to even though no one is hurt. I used it to point out the silliness of your argument that no one is hurt by warrantless wiretaps.

The Constitution does not give the President the power to do what he is doing. that he also broke the law (FISA) is a separate matter.

Hypocrisy, that's something you guys could use a lesson on. Like I said, I don't know all the details of what Clinton did, but as I said, if it is how you characterize it, I am just as against that. Why is it that you are apparently only against Clinton's alleged abuse of power and not Bush's? Who is being hypocritical? And again, whatever Clinton did is history, I'm concerned with current abuse of power, because it's something we still have the ability to change.

John Howard said...

You keep making this ridiculous assumption that this will only be used against terrorists. There is no evidence other than the President's word to suggest that that is true. And there is a giant reason to doubt his word because if it was true, there's no reason that this couldn't be done legally.

When you say everyone agrees that he talked with Congress, that's a bit misleading. He briefed some members of Congress. Also, you make it sound like they had to sign off on it, and they didn't. Some had reservations that were communicated at the time, and others have come out and said they were not comfortable with it. Either way, they had no say in it, and it wasn't the entire Congress.

Your Constitutional argument could give the President the power to do anything, as long as he says it's important to protect you. Surely, you don't contend that that sort of unlimited power was the intent?

They have given their exact legal definition, and it's bullshit. Anyway, why table the discussion? Certainly we could do that, but if that had been done before, we might not even be having hearings at all. These things are important to talk about. Even if I ultimately came to the conclusion that I was wrong in my opinion of this, I still think it's important to talk about. It's certainly a bad idea to give the President unchecked power simply for the asking, with no debate about it.

Maybe you're right about Clinton, I don't know, but again, he's gone, anything he was doing is no longer an issue unless it has been continued by Bush. And all three of your conditions also apply to Bush, do you seriously not see that?

Just because someone talks to lawyers doesn't mean something is legally defensible. Also, even if it is legally defensible, with something this intrusive, they should at the very least be forced to put on that legal defense.

John Howard said...

1) War has not been declared on anyone
2) There is every reason to believe that this program includes Americans and no reason to believe that it doesn't. I'll be happy to revise my opinion if Bush lets anyone at all know exactly who he is spying on.
3) Whether they were found or not doesn't change the fact that there is evidence to suggest they are there.

I'm not a lawyer either, but since any number of lawyers can fall on either side of the issue, but most of the ones on Bush's side work FOR him, that makes me a little skeptical.

If you agree that hearings are justified then what are you arguing about? I'm certainly not suggesting that we kick Bush out of office without even investigating, I just think it's worth finding out what is really going on.

And yes, that is the administration position and you don't have to be a legal scholar to see it's bullshit. They are basing way too much on the Authorization to use military force, particularly when the people who voted for that authorization are the same ones that are now calling for hearings into this program. If they thought that they were authorizing things like this program with that vote, then why would they want hearings into it now? Clearly it wasn't their intent, and the administration is inferring far greater power from it than it was intended to give.