Posted on 02/09/2006 5:22:06 AM PST by AZRepublican
Whatever happened to "impeachment"? Only two months ago, that was the word on leading Democratic lips as they assailed President Bush for "illegal" warrantless NSA wiretaps against al Qaeda suspects. But at Monday's Senate hearing on the issue, the idea never even made an appearance.
The reason isn't because liberal critics have come to some epiphany about the necessity of executive discretion in wartime. The reason is they can read the opinion polls. And the polls show that a majority of Americans want their government to eavesdrop on al Qaeda suspects, even--or should we say, especially--if they're talking to one of their dupes or sympathizers here in the U.S.
In short, the larger political battle over wiretaps is over, and the President has won the argument among the American people. We hope Dan Bartlett, Steve Hadley and other White House message-makers notice the difference between this outcome, on a matter on which they bothered to fight, and so many other controversies when they ceded the field to their opponents ("torture," Joe Wilson).
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
Before Carter became a terrible ex-president, he was a terrible president. Any legislation he signed deserves close scrutiny--especially in the area of national security.
For the FISA court to legally have the authority it thinks it has, a constitutional amendment would have to be passed accordingly.
YES, but NO. When Carter surrendered the president's constitutional authority to the FISA court (via congressional legislation that was passed), he did so without the authority (a constitutional amendment was required) to do so.
Thus, the FISA court is an unconstitutional court.
Maybe Bush just wanted to be nice and not scare everyone. Most likely the opinion polls would be lower if Bush authorized purely domestic spying. And FISA is a quick way to get a purely domestic warrant without the hassle of reasonableness a normal judge might impose. But if Bush wanted to he could simply put the matter before the Supreme Court since its their job to judge whether Laws are consistant with the constitution. And by their and other federal courts precedent they would announce FISA to be unconstitutional.
All this talk about expanding FISA, submitting the NSA program to the FISA court is crap. FISA itself is unconstitutional limit of the presidents power when it comes to the NSA program (hence so would the FISA court of review even though they have said the president has the power). It was Carter's responsibility to check this and of course he failed.
I'm not so sure that the phrase "work it out" is useful in a war situation. "Work it out" implies a compromise of some sort which could only result in a diminution of the President's war powers granted to him by the Constitution. That would be disastrous.
As to the higher authority there is no higher authority than the people who must make the decision about the safety of themselves and their children. If the president takes the matter directly to the people, as Reagan did, the matter would be resolved by the public.
That's it in a nutshell. If we just cut off the right of access to courts, or the burden of obtaining convictions, this whole "make war" power of the President would be so much more tidy. And Constitutional, eh?
. . . and what would that amendment say?"Abraham Lincoln was wrong - the Constitution is a suicide pact."
Can't argue with that!
The NYT bathhouse boys should pay for this disgrace, trying to impeach the President of the United States with boots on the ground all over the Middle East.
It's past time to destroy this rag, every editor, owner and "reporter" should be exposed, and their reputations destroyed.
Not to mention the "sixteen words" which are still true - even in hindsight, British intelligence reaffirms what Bush quoted it as saying.
Does the president have to request permission from Congress or the courts to drop a nuclear bomb on our enemies?
Which part of "All means necessary" does not clearly indicate that the President may use surveillance on our enemy and if there are US citizens collaborating with them, US citizens.
I'm not advocating "working it out". That's the Lindsey Graham approach.
Personally I believe the WH should stick to its guns, because Congress really has no way of interfering short of defunding NSA.
Where precisely in the constitution is the phase "all means necessary" used?
http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html
Aha, a FISA despisa.
This isn't about crimes, however. Nothing turned up by these spyings can go into a criminal court.
How then, does the information get used? Just liquidate the offenders? After all, if they are terrorists, and us being at war and all that.
Personally I believe it's a trap & trace and pen register program being used to map communication transactions (which is legally very distinct from communication content). The "map" is used to eventually determine whether any pattern of communication is sufficient to establish probable cause. If so, it goes to FISA (for domestic matters only).
The word "wiretap" is being bandied about, but there is zero evidence that any wiretapping is being done by NSA. I mean zero.
And in any case if the instruments used in this operation are outside of U.S. territory, then NSA is operating completely within its presumed charter.
By the way, the original leakers of this operation would presumably be operating in a compartmentalized fashion, and would have no idea whatsoever whether the information was eventually used to obtain FISA warrants.
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