Posted on 01/13/2006 8:12:58 AM PST by laxin4him
President Bush may have broken the law when he authorized the National Security Agency to conduct surveillance on U.S.-based terrorists, ex-president Bill Clinton said Thursday.
Asked if he thought Bush had gone too far by circumventing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to wiretap terrorists, Clinton told ABC's "Nightline": "As a legal proposition, I don't know."
He said it would have been better if his successor had followed established legal guidelines, explaining: "It seems to me that unless there's a reason not to, we ought to use that surveillance court."
Clinton said that when he was president, he always tried to work within the constraints of the law.
"My attitude was that once the Congress had spoken on it and given us tools that we needed, we used it, we used the law. It wasn't anything I ever had any question to even think about because I felt that the court and the setup was more than enough to do what we needed to do," he told "Nightline." Clinton predicted that ultimately the Supreme Court would have to decide whether Bush acted illegally.
The former president wasn't asked about projects Echelon and Carnivore, two programs that monitored the electronic communications of millions of Americans during his administration without authorization from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
Priceless
The expert liar pot, calling the kettle black.
What will it take for him to JUST GO AWAY!!????
If it were not for the media protecting him, he would have been making his comments through a telephone in a visiting room in federal prison.
....having broken so many laws himself, he's now an expert on lawlessness.
Interesting words from a man who's justice department was found by the FISA court to have had a habbit of overtly misleading the FISA court to obtain warrants.
This from a man who used his powers as president to spy on his political opponents? Please.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Best joke I've heard all day.
Is it the people or is it the media that thinks he is God?
...My Gawd, I'm going to be wiping the coffee gulp I had in my mouth off my monitor's screen for the next four hours!
As I understand Aldrich Ames's house was searched without a warrant, and this would have been about 1993.
"Clinton said that when he was president, he always tried to work within the constraints of the law."
Is this the same Bill Clinton who can no longer practice law because of an Obstruction of Justice charge or something or other, I'm not clear on that. Was that within the constraints of the "law" or does it depend on what the word "law" means. I'm just really confused.
Disbarred lawyer popping off...
Bwaaaaaaa!!!!! That's hysterical. Did he say this with a straight face?
A law unto himself, that is.
If Clinton had done what Bush did, we might have avoided 9/11.
One more time, Bubba. Here we are at war - a real war for the DEFENSE of America, and not some sociological exercise in the erstwhile Yugoslavia, and a former president says the sitting president has broken federal law. That is seditious.
Besides, Mr. Clinton lies under oath.
What a guy.
Putz.
Never Trust Big Media
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