On The NSA 'Spying'

[Annie]

Excellent discussion starter here:

http://www.proteinwisdom.com/index.php/weblog/entry/19543/

Saturday, December 17, 2005
The Revolution will be blogged, 8 (UPDATED)

The Democratic spin doctors, spurred on by their disingenuous Congressional taskmasters , are all over the tube this morning trying to gin up additional outrage over this NSA domestic “spy story”—even as the President stands firm and defends the practice. Forcefully. From his weekly radio addres (via Byron York):

In the weeks following the terrorist attacks on our nation, I authorized the National Security Agency, consistent with U.S. law and the Constitution, to intercept the international communications of people with known links to al Qaeda and related terrorist organizations. Before we intercept these communications, the government must have information that establishes a clear link to these terrorist networks.

This is a highly classified program that is crucial to our national security. Its purpose is to detect and prevent terrorist attacks against the United States, our friends and allies. Yesterday the existence of this secret program was revealed in media reports, after being improperly provided to news organizations. As a result, our enemies have learned information they should not have, and the unauthorized disclosure of this effort damages our national security and puts our citizens at risk. Revealing classified information is illegal, alerts our enemies, and endangers our country.

As the 9/11 Commission pointed out, it was clear that terrorists inside the United States were communicating with terrorists abroad before the September the 11th attacks, and the commission criticized our nation’s inability to uncover links between terrorists here at home and terrorists abroad. Two of the terrorist hijackers who flew a jet into the Pentagon, Nawaf al Hamzi and Khalid al Mihdhar, communicated while they were in the United States to other members of al Qaeda who were overseas. But we didn’t know they were here, until it was too late.

The authorization I gave the National Security Agency after September the 11th helped address that problem in a way that is fully consistent with my constitutional responsibilities and authorities. The activities I have authorized make it more likely that killers like these 9/11 hijackers will be identified and located in time. And the activities conducted under this authorization have helped detect and prevent possible terrorist attacks in the United States and abroad.

The activities I authorized are reviewed approximately every 45 days. Each review is based on a fresh intelligence assessment of terrorist threats to the continuity of our government and the threat of catastrophic damage to our homeland. During each assessment, previous activities under the authorization are reviewed. The review includes approval by our nation’s top legal officials, including the Attorney General and the Counsel to the President. I have reauthorized this program more than 30 times since the September the 11th attacks, and I intend to do so for as long as our nation faces a continuing threat from al Qaeda and related groups.

The NSA’s activities under this authorization are thoroughly reviewed by the Justice Department and NSA’s top legal officials, including NSA’s general counsel and inspector general. Leaders in Congress have been briefed more than a dozen times on this authorization and the activities conducted under it. Intelligence officials involved in this activity also receive extensive training to ensure they perform their duties consistent with the letter and intent of the authorization.

This authorization is a vital tool in our war against the terrorists. It is critical to saving American lives. The American people expect me to do everything in my power under our laws and Constitution to protect them and their civil liberties. And that is exactly what I will continue to do, so long as I’m the President of the United States.

An aside here: Asked by FOXNews’ Tony Snow if he believed the release of the NYT story was “coincidental,” Democratic strategist Bob Beckel laughed and noted that of course it wasn’t. Which, in addition to being obvious to all but a few naive (or perhaps willfully blind) partisans, has the ironic secondary effect of proving a convergence between the Democratic party’s interests (well, the anti-Lieberman/Zell Miller wing, anyway; to his credit, here’s Lieberman distinguishing himself again today) and the interests of the New York Times.

Writing at the Corner, Cliff May reacts to this story much the way I have (and have many of my readers, more than a few of whom have worked in the intelligence field):

Will any MSM editorial page demand an investigation of this leak? Or is it the belief of the MSM that the truthful revelation that CIA operative Valerie Plame got her partisan retired husband assigned an African boondoggle more significant than actual breaches of national security in wartime?

I believe any pro-defense blogger should agitate for just such an investigation.

In fact, I think it high time that we push back against the implied cultural assertion that patriotism and national security are quaint throwbacks to modernism and the early days of the Cold War—and that, as a hyperpower, we can easily absorb such leaks, used as political cudgels, as the price of doing business in the partisan divide of Washington.

In the last week alone, we’ve seen a huge victory in Iraq, where close to 15 million cast ballots in favor of self-determination, cheapened by the leaking of important (and legal, we’ll certainly find) intelligence gathering operations; we’ve seen the defeat of the PATRIOT Act—the very measures that we know to have thwarted terrorist attacks, and the measures our Commander in Chief and his Justice Dept is asking for to keep us safe—thanks to a timed assault by the New York Times and congressional Democrats (reacting with practiced outrage to what we now know that in many cases they’d been briefed on); and we’ve seen proven interrogation techniques made ostensibly “illegal” by officially defining torture down, providing our enemies with yet another measure of victory.

Important to note here are two things: 1) The NYT story doesn’t suggest the administration did anything illegal; and 2) the level and tenor of the outrage from Dems strategists, spokespeople, and leaders, is a clear indication that they are protesting just a bit too much—that they are trying to shout down rebuttals by assuming the wounded patriot stance that is swiftly becoming the most overused weapon in their entire political arsenal.

If it turns out—like I believe it will (and I’ve heard now from several people familiar with intelligence)—that what the President was doing (and will continue to do) was not only legal, but from a practical standpoint, critical to monitoring domestic terror cells and stopping terrorist attacks here and abroad, I believe that any pro-defense American with the power to do so should insist that these intelligence leaks be investigated.

Because it is not quaint to reveal our secrets simply because you don’t believe that we are truly at war. And that is what is happening here—that Dems and progressives believe the ends justify the means. And until the rest of us stand up and go on the offensive—until we stop taking the kind of reactive posture that forces us to defend each and every necessary action (the precise rhetorical position anti-war progressives want us in)—we will continue to watch our safety erode, and our politicians go weak.

With that, I’ll leave you with this excellent comment from Steve in Houston, which sums up the anger many of us feel at the partisan undermining of the war effort:

I’m just bewildered by this whole thing, and the ongoing maneuvering to kneecap any of our more effective terroristic countermeasures.

We know by now that terrorist cells work much like organized crime, though in a much more shadowy setting than, say, your average don. We HAVE to be able to act on intelligence from them quickly because of the cellular nature of their operations - that requires speed, for which we have to give up something.

IT guys often say you can get it fast, or you can get it right. CEOs say do both, because they have bigger issues to deal with than project management.

No one that I know is saying that gives license for wanton snooping; speaking for myself, though, I’m willing to give up a portion of “privacy” that I didn’t realize I had in order to more effectively combat the people who have declared war on us and are trying to kill us.

Which brings me to what I think is really going on: I believe that the majority of those on the left and a good number of libertarians believe, quite simply, that we aren’t at war; or that if we are, it’s “war” instead of war, and besides, it was based on lies so it really isn’t a war. Also: Halliburton. And anyway, we started it.

With that as an assumption, they then act in ways that are utterly baffling to those of us who believe we are in a war that has many fronts, not all of which are physical.

If you begin with the assumption that, say, the New York Times thinks the war on terror and the war in Iraq are just a bunch of bullshit, then this kind of reporting makes complete and perfect sense. Same with Dean’s and Murtha’s and Pelosi’s and Kerry’s pronouncements.

It’s the kind of fundamental difference that I’m afraid can never really be bridged, much like that between pro-choicers and pro-lifers.

It’s going to take another attack for it to perhaps change, but even then, the left and many of the Dems have an out - that Bush obviously put us in greater danger. They’ve already set up the theorem, they’re just waiting for the proof. A little attack, say a mall bombing, would do just fine. If it’s in a Red State, that actually might be better. That might “wake people up” to the real danger to life on Earth.

They’ve seen that their constituents can absorb a 9/11-style attack, and they’ve seen that the victims of such attacks become even more resolute in their hatred of George Bush and Republicans.

If I’m a terrorist, feeling all bummed by my comrades getting greased along the Euphrates, I’m really trying to find a silver lining. Fortunately, the infidels are cooperating:

-- I now no longer need fear any kind of physical coercion; the Dems have basically put me in the same position as Nigel Tufnel’s guitar: It’s never been played. Don’t touch it. Don’t even point. Don’t even look at it.

-- As a potential martyr, I know I won’t need to comply with a treaty I never signed; I won’t be incarcerated for much more than a fortnight; I won’t be returned to my country of origin; and I won’t be placed in some allahforsaken Caribbean gulag where they pee within 20 feet of my
plastic-encased Koran.

-- I also know that if the kufr find my Blackberry, they can’t really do much about checking on my contacts at Harvard and Georgetown. I’ll lose my speed dial to Ahmenedijad (sp?) and Dana Milbank’s (or is it Dana Priest’s?) e-mail address, but I can always rebuild my contacts list.

It’s great. I get all the benefits of being an American citizen and still get to plot its violent demise.

 

[Annie]

http://corner.nationalreview.com/05_12_11_corner-archive.asp#084896

EAVESDROPPING INS AND OUTS [Mark R. Levin]
Some brief background: The Foreign Intelligence Security Act permits the government to monitor foreign communications, even if they are with U.S. citizens -- 50 USC 1801, et seq. A FISA warrant is only needed if the subject communications are wholly contained in the United States and involve a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power.

The reason the President probably had to sign an executive order is that the Justice Department office that processes FISA requests, the Office of Intelligence Policy and Review (OIPR), can take over 6 months to get a standard FISA request approved. It can become extremely bureaucratic, depending on who is handling the request. His executive order is not contrary to FISA if he believed, as he clearly did, that he needed to act quickly. The president has constitutional powers, too.

It's also clear from the Times piece that Rockefeller knew about the government's eavesdropping, as did the FISA court. By the time this story is fully fleshed out, we'll learn that many others knew about it, too. To the best of my knowledge, Rockefeller didn't take any steps to stop the eavesdropping. And he's no friend of this administration. Nor is he above using intelligence for political purposes, as his now infamous memorandum demonstrates.

But these leaks -- about secret prisons in Europe, CIA front companies, and now secret wiretaps, are egregious violations of law and extremely detrimental to our national security. They are far worse than any aspect of the Plame matter. The question is whether our government is capable of tracking down these perpetrators and punishing them, or will we continue to allow the Times and Washington Post determine national security policy. And if these wiretaps are violative of our civil liberties, it's curious that the Times would wait a year to report about it. I cannot remember the last time, or first time, this newspaper reported a leak that was helpful to our war effort.
Posted at 12:06 PM

 

[Annie]

At all sites, links are found.

http://coldfury.com/index.php/?p=6116

Much Ado About Nothing
Posted on Saturday 17 December 2005

People are shocked, simply shocked, to find out that the NSA has monitored the phone conversations of roughly 500 terrorist suspects without a warrant over the last three or four years.

The NY Times was shocked, simply shocked to find gambling here on Thursday. (We won’t mention that the story rolled out linked to a new book published by the NY Times… we’d never be so gauche as to bring something like that up).

The usual suspects were freaked out about it. In fact, I started looking into this as a result of a more or less normally vituperative Balloon Juice post comments section here.

Then President Bush spoke about it in his weekly address today, apparently quite angry that he is getting hammered for doing something that he believes is very legal, that he’s proud of doing, and that is an integral part of our counterterrorism strategy, and Oh By The Way was an extremely highly classified defense secret until Thursday morning. Huh? What’s that? He has the power to do that? Yes, he says, and he’s issued 20-some certifications to do so on 500 some individuals since 9/11 according to the Times.

So, I spent this nice Saturday afternoon doing a little legal research on your behalf.

Well, yes, it seems the President probably does have the power to order NSA to monitor suspects, without a warrant, in terrorism cases, where the communications are between controller/co-conspirator, and target, and the terrorist group is tied to foreign countries or particular factions in foreign countries. It’s tied to particular circumstances though, so it’s worth knowing more about the details if you wish to comment intelligibly on the issue.

Generally, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) requires a warrant for the monitoring of U.S. persons on U.S. soil, but does not necessarily require a warrant for monitoring agents of foreign powers in similar circumstances. Keep in mind, this is intelligence monitoring, not wiretapping the phones of your local mafia hoodlums.

According to 50 U.S.C. 1801, the definitions section of FISA, an agent of a foreign power is:

b(1) any person other than a United States person, who—. . .

acts for or on behalf of a foreign power which engages in clandestine intelligence activities in the United States

OR

(b)(2) any person who. . .knowingly engages in sabotage or international terrorism, or activities that are in preparation therefor, for or on behalf of a foreign power. . . [or who] knowingly aids or abets any person in the conduct of activities described [herein].

Note that there are two categories – intel agents of foreign powers, and terrorism agents of foreign powers. U.S. persons cannot be subjected to warrant-less monitoring under FISA in the traditional intelligence context. In stark contrast, U.S. persons who are engaged in terrorist activities (broadly defined, admittedly a civil liberties concern) may be defined as an agent of a foreign power. This is so because FISA clearly and unambiguously protects U.S. persons in one subsection discussing the pure intelligence context, yet in a parallel section relating to terrorism extends the definition of agent of a foreign power to “any person” – in other words there are strong textual and structural arguments that show the Congress believes that U.S. person status is irrelevant in the counterterrorism context. This is not the atrocity under the 4th Amendment that it might seem to be; the keystone of all 4th Amendment tests is reasonableness, and the Court hasn’t exactly examined this particular question in any great depth, so Congress was basically free to speak it’s mind on this issue.

The power to monitor without warrant under FISA, even for U.S. persons involved in terrorism, is not unfettered.

In addition to existing restrictions under Executive Order 12333 and other internal limits, FISA states in 50 U.S.C. 1802 that, “the President, through the Attorney General, may authorize electronic surveillance without a court order under this subchapter to acquire foreign intelligence information for periods of up to one year if the Attorney General certifies in writing under oath that—
(A) the electronic surveillance is solely directed at—

(i) the acquisition of the contents of communications transmitted by means of communications used exclusively between or among foreign powers, as defined in section 1801 . . .”

Got that? The definitions portion of FISA (sec. 1801) defines an agent of a foreign power to include people believed to be involved in terrorist operations, regardless of U.S. person status – a broader classification than the traditional pure intel definition of agent of a foreign power. The Act then goes on to provide for a presidential and AG certification / approval process for monitoring the communications of such persons – which sounds a lot like what Bush was describing in his speech today. There are also procedures for notifying the courts and congressional overseers – two other procedures Bush invoked in his speech.

Are there legitimate concerns over the breadth of the definition of terrorism under FISA? Yeah, I’d say so. Is there a weakness in this interpretation of the law? Yep, there’s that too, but it’s pretty minor and I think our national security has been undermined enough for one day, so I’m going to let that go.

It’s not surprising Bush is angry – it sounds to me like he followed the letter of the law, only to be hit by the NY Times, the grandstanding senate with its PATRIOT Act shutdown, and bitter, bitter criticism over his use of this tactic. Never mind the fact that the secret is now out, and this is one more source of intel that will dry up.

I’m not the biggest Bush fan in the world. I think his hiring practices are too crony-oriented and Texas-based, and I think he is too loyal to bad subordinates, and only about half as conservative as I’d like, and not at all as libertarian as I’d like.

But he is a grownup, and he’s trying to do some grownup things. He is one of us, one of those who was changed by 9/11, and he is trying to do the right thing. The shameless senate grandstanding on this issue, along with the way it is being used to hammer him (when it appears he has followed the law to the letter) is just disgusting, and I do not begrudge him his anger.

By way of purely political analysis, I’d encourage the left to go into full-tilt batshit mode on this one. It might be one of the dumbest things they could do – when the American people get word that the President and Attorney General and intel community have gone and used every available power under the law to fight ongoing terrorist conspiracies right here in the U.S., man, they’ll be pissed. Not at the President, AG and intel community though, which is why I’m encouraging my lefty friends to start the panty-wadding right now.

 

[Annie]

Lots of links:

http://instapundit.com/archives/027553.php

TOM MAGUIRE has questions for the New York Times.

UPDATE: Lots more here. And there's this: "I cannot remember the last time, or first time, this newspaper reported a leak that was helpful to our war effort."

ANOTHER UPDATE: Much more here. Plus, "Frog-marched to the hoosegow?"

And Sen. John Cornyn is criticizing the Times rather harshly. In a later post, Tom Maguire finds some other members of Congress "annoyingly hypocritical," and observes:

News flash - we are still a representative democracy, despite the evident unwillingness of our opposition party to bestir itself. If this secret program was so outrageous, the Senate and House Democrats who had been briefed on it should have spoken up. Instead, we get profiles in courage as, per the Times, Reid, Rockefeller, and others are unavailable for comment.

My take: This story was bad for Bush on Friday, but it'll be bad for a lot of other people by next week. My earlier post on this topic is here.

MORE: Glenn Greenwald says that the Cold Fury post to which I link above misquotes the statute.

I'm still hoping for a lengthier analysis by Orin Kerr. I've taught FISA in the past, but it's been a couple of years and I'm busy grading Administrative Law exams. Of course, Orin's probably got his own stack of bluebooks. In the post of Orin's that I linked to before, he noted that the area is very complex and unclear, and suggested that people read this District Court opinion. But note that it's only a District Court opinion.

It's also worth noting that there are two distinct issues here: Whether the wiretapping (or other interception) was legal, and whether the leak was legal. The leak almost certainly violated the law. The wiretapping is not so clear: Most people fail to appreciate how limited their protection against government surveilliance is, both under statutes and under constitutional law. And that's doubly so where international communications are concerned. (And, except for the small possibility of a constitutional-tort action, the main remedy for unconstitutional surveillance can be found in the exclusionary rule, which only comes into play if someone is prosecuted and the government tries to introduce the surveillance into evidence -- meaning that, as with the exclusionary rule in general, the remedy is worthless if you're never charged with anything, say because you're innocent.) Nor is this a phenomenon that can be blamed on the Patriot Act or the Bush Administration, particularly -- the protections are just quite limited indeed, and prone to technical parsing on such questions as whether the communications were "stored," even momentarily, en route. (For a non-FISA example of that kind of parsing, read the Steve Jackson Games opinion from 1994, long before the Patriot Act). You may find these legal interpretations offensive -- I do -- but they're the law as it is.

And this observation seems to be correct: "What is clear is that this is not some Watergate-type rogue operation, as seemingly hoped by some. In addition to repeated congressional notification, the program has been heavily lawyered by multiple agencies, including the Department of Justice and NSA and White House, and is regularly reviewed. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Secretary of State Condi Rice have both insisted that program is legal. The fact that some might disagree with whatever legal advice and conclusions the president has received does not make them right or the program illegal. But at this point, we, the public, don't really know what these news stories are really about, do we?"

MORE: Dafydd Ab Hugh has more questions for the Times. I think that there will be a lot of those.
posted at 04:53 PM by Glenn Reynolds

 

[Bullypulpit]

THere is no need for the NSA to be actively eavesdropping on US soil. Action can be taken by domestic agencies, and they have 72 hours in which to bring these actions to the FISA court, which has denied only a handful of actions since its inception.

By authorizing NSA eavesdropping within the US, Dubbyuh overstepped his authority and Congress failed in its oversight duties, as they have since Dubbyuh took office. This imperial presidency cannot come to an end soon enough. I only hope he has the grace to resign before he disgraces himself by being impeached and removed from office.

 

[manu1959]

THere is no need for the NSA to be actively eavesdropping on US soil. Action can be taken by domestic agencies, and they have 72 hours in which to bring these actions to the FISA court, which has denied only a handful of actions since its inception.

By authorizing NSA eavesdropping within the US, Dubbyuh overstepped his authority and Congress failed in its oversight duties, as they have since Dubbyuh took office. This imperial presidency cannot come to an end soon enough. I only hope he has the grace to resign before he disgraces himself by being impeached and removed from office.

clinton did the same thing.....

 

[no1tovote4]

THere is no need for the NSA to be actively eavesdropping on US soil. Action can be taken by domestic agencies, and they have 72 hours in which to bring these actions to the FISA court, which has denied only a handful of actions since its inception.

By authorizing NSA eavesdropping within the US, Dubbyuh overstepped his authority and Congress failed in its oversight duties, as they have since Dubbyuh took office. This imperial presidency cannot come to an end soon enough. I only hope he has the grace to resign before he disgraces himself by being impeached and removed from office.

FISC had regular reports of this, according to the NYT story. It was kind of glossed over, but the courts had oversight as well. This would be all three branches of government with oversight of a program. Unlike project Echelon, in the 1990s up until 2000 the NSA monitored, with software and without court warrant, every digital communication in the US. This was authorized by another President.

For those that don't remember Echelon was a project that had no oversight from any other branch of the government whatsoever. It authorized the NSA to use the Echelon software to monitor digital communications and flag for direct intel inspection all communications tagged with certain words. It was reported in the news and was an international controversy. The lefties all got behind their guy though....

At least Bush's had reports to FISC (Foreign Intel Surveillance Court) and the Senate Intel committee, when there were questions from FISC the project was put on hold until the objections were handled then reopened. This is clearly evidence of oversight by the courts as well as the Senators like Mr. Harry Reid, who admitted finally that he had been part of the oversight and voiced no objection until after the story was reported.

This will backfire if they keep attempting to lay this at only the Executive's feet. All three branches were in on it, including the Minority Party. They might want to rethink this tactic.

This kind of thing keeps up we might have a Libertarian Party landslide in the next election!

 

[dmp]

Does anybody else 'not care'? I couldn't give two rat's asses if the Govt feels the need to tap my phone or take images of my house, from space. They do so on at least the idea I may be doing something wrong. More power to 'em.

Why people get so worked up over this stuff is beyond me.

 

[GotZoom]

Does anybody else 'not care'? I couldn't give two rat's asses if the Govt feels the need to tap my phone or take images of my house, from space. They do so on at least the idea I may be doing something wrong. More power to 'em.

Why people get so worked up over this stuff is beyond me.

I agree. Tap my phones, you'll be bored.

Check my computer, you'll be very disappointed.

If you don't do anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about.

 

[dmp]

It's like...

FBI...you see a brother you THINK is a terrorist...shake him down. You THINK I'm a terrorist? Bet your ass...shake me down.

 

[Bullypulpit]

Dubbyuh's actions also beg the question of, "Just what is the Administration doing that it cannot be revealed even to the rubber-stamp FISC?"

<blockquote><i><b>They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty or safety.</b></i> - Benjamin Franklin</blockquote>

 

[Bullypulpit]

clinton did the same thing.....

Two wrongs don't make a right. Stop being such a lemming.

BTW, isn't your avatar that of Gary Cooper as Howard Roark in Ayn Rand's "<i>The Fountainhead</i>"? What would Mr. Roark say?. For that matter, what would Ms. Rand say?

 

[Avatar4321]

Does anybody else 'not care'? I couldn't give two rat's asses if the Govt feels the need to tap my phone or take images of my house, from space. They do so on at least the idea I may be doing something wrong. More power to 'em.

Why people get so worked up over this stuff is beyond me.

I dont really care. I agree if someone tapped my phone they would be pretty disappointed. I mean they would get a phone call like ones a week maybe and lots of me hanging up on telemarketers.

I wouldnt know about it. so its not like it would be terribly intrusive. Its not taking up any of my time. The Constitution does not say anything about the government not having authority to listen to my telephone.

You know its amazing how just obeying the law leaves you free from any consequences of the law. I guess i understand why so many liberals are worried.

 

[manu1959]

Two wrongs don't make a right. Stop being such a lemming.

BTW, isn't your avatar that of Gary Cooper as Howard Roark in Ayn Rand's "<i>The Fountainhead</i>"? What would Mr. Roark say?. For that matter, what would Ms. Rand say?

congress was informed several times by mr. bush....i would imagine that howard and ann would be very proud of mr. bush for being an individual and doing what is right at the expense of pleasing you and the rest of the collective

 

[Mr. P]

I am uncomfortable with this. Condi laid it out on meet the press yesterday, but was (IMO) uncomfortable about what she was saying. She made sense, the reasons for this made sense, but there is something I can’t put my finger on still bugging me about it.

 

[Bullypulpit]

congress was informed several times by mr. bush....i would imagine that howard and ann would be very proud of mr. bush for being an individual and doing what is right at the expense of pleasing you and the rest of the collective

This is simply another falsehood promulgated by the Administration. There was a meeting in 2002 after DUbbyuh signed the executive order authorizing these activities. The issue discussed, however, was was the interception of foreign messages going through US communications facilities. According to former Senator Bob Graham, who was chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee at the time,

<blockquote>There was no reference made to the fact that we were going to use that as the subterfuge to begin unwarranted, illegal — and I think unconstitutional — eavesdropping on American citizens. - Bob Graham, Nightline, 12/16/2005</blockquote>

It seems likely that the Administration simply pulled another bait-and-switch in order to conceal the real purpose of their actions.

The upshot of it is that Dubbyuh essentially confessed, on national television, to a high crime and misdemeanor...An impeachable offence against the citizens of this nation...violated his oath to "uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic"...If he had any sense of honor at all he would resign and spare the nation the indignity of impeachment hearings.

As for Howard Roark and Ayn Rand, you did not read closely or well enough. Ayn Rand held that the only purpose of government was to protect the rights of the smallest minority of all...The individual. Keep those rights sacrosanct, and all else will fall into place. Dubbyuhs actions trample the rights of the individual underfoot in what she would have seen as an attempt to establish the primacy of the state over the individual. She would have had nothing but contempt for Dubbyuh and his cronies.

 

[Bullypulpit]

I am uncomfortable with this. Condi laid it out on meet the press yesterday, but was (IMO) uncomfortable about what she was saying. She made sense, the reasons for this made sense, but there is something I can’t put my finger on still bugging me about it.

She was uncomfortable about what she was saying because she wasn't really saying anything. SHe merely spoke of some unreferenced "...authorities that derive from his role as Commander in Chief and his need to protect the country..." she truly could not articulate why these actions were legal.

While much has been made of the fact that America is "at war", Congress has made no declaration of war. Does this make it alright then for the President to ignore US law and the Constitution simply because we are engaged in an undeclared war? In a word, "No." The Constitution is the Constituion, and the fourth amendment stands. The Constitution is the law of the land, and no amount of wishing it were otherwise by Dubbyuh will make it otherwise. He is bound by it and his actions are circumscribed by it. But Dubbyuh doesn't seem to think so. To him, it's just a "...goddamned piece of paper...".

 

[no1tovote4]

I am uncomfortable with this. Condi laid it out on meet the press yesterday, but was (IMO) uncomfortable about what she was saying. She made sense, the reasons for this made sense, but there is something I can’t put my finger on still bugging me about it.

The fact that they seem to have suspended the IV Amendment?

 

[no1tovote4]

This is simply another falsehood promulgated by the Administration. There was a meeting in 2002 after DUbbyuh signed the executive order authorizing these activities. The issue discussed, however, was was the interception of foreign messages going through US communications facilities. According to former Senator Bob Graham, who was chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee at the time,

<blockquote>There was no reference made to the fact that we were going to use that as the subterfuge to begin unwarranted, illegal — and I think unconstitutional — eavesdropping on American citizens. - Bob Graham, Nightline, 12/16/2005</blockquote>

It seems likely that the Administration simply pulled another bait-and-switch in order to conceal the real purpose of their actions.

The upshot of it is that Dubbyuh essentially confessed, on national television, to a high crime and misdemeanor...An impeachable offence against the citizens of this nation...violated his oath to "uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic"...If he had any sense of honor at all he would resign and spare the nation the indignity of impeachment hearings.

Harry Reid admitted he was briefed on this, do you think the Minority Leader of the Senate was lying?

 

[Bullypulpit]

Harry Reid admitted he was briefed on this, do you think the Minority Leader of the Senate was lying?

Yes...A couple of months ago. That he did nothing about it then, bespeaks a certain lack of backbone on his part. He should of, at that time, sponsored a Resolution of Inquiry into the matter.

The story coming out as it did in the New York Times does not absolve him of his crime of omission. And let's not forget, the Times sat on the story for nearly a year, at the request of the administration. Their moral cowardice is also inexcusable.