Did Carter and Clinton order warrantless wiretaps/searches of American citizens? No.
***Update***
Also, Kevin Drum has a quick rundown of some other recent FISA stories. Most interestingly, it looks like the warrantless wiretaps netted some purely domestic communications. Tsk.
***Update 2***
Scott McLellan tries to define ‘oversight,’ instead defines ‘Congress.’ Hilarious.
Ozymandius
Of course they didn’t. They were cowardly traitors. Neither had the depth of righteousness and patriotism it takes to properly break the law. If they weren’t such communists they would have. But the pathetic losers didn’t love America enough
BlogReeder
Since terrorists are stateless actors, this is a whole new era. The rules ars still being sorted out. Carter and Clinton preferred to put their heads up their collective asses instead.
Barry
At this point, if I could go back in time to an alternate universe where Clinton was actually doing what the liars on the right claimed he was, I’d be awfully tempted. Those right-wingers *deserve* anything that the government does to them. They don’t deserve the rights of free men and women. The *want* to be slaves, they crave the master.
Krista
Tim – Like I mentioned on the Echelon thread, I don’t see why people seem to prefer focusing on what past administrations may or may not have done. Every time we find out about something else that this administration has done, a whole segment of people immediately holler that other presidents have done bad things.
It’s like getting caught speeding, and trying to get out of your ticket by claiming that your neighbour speeds too.
Why can people not focus on what THIS administration is doing, while the ability exists to actually do something about it?
Cromagnon
And how about those ‘historic’ elections in Iraq!…
Lines
What! Darrell was wrong? AGAIN? jeez, now he’s going to come in here and whine and obfusciate all day.
Good job, Tim. Why don’t you just tweak his nose about Valerie Plame while you’re at it?
BlogReeder
Cromagnon, you sure showed us! Harmony unraveling! Oh my! Why can’t they be as harmonious as the Democrats and Republicans in the US?
ppGaz
A blurb from cromagnon’s link.
Wow, it sounds like we really are exporting our own democracy to Iraq. And I said it couldn’t be done …. I may have to eat my words.
Paddy O'Shea
Cro: The Sunnis are crying foul because the Shi’ite pro-Iranian fundamentalist bloc carried the day and now controls a majority of the votes in the new Parliament. In other words, our boy Ayad Allawi got his butt kicked. Even the Sunnis voted fundie over the US back so-called secular candidate.
The first order of business for the Parliament of Allah Triumphant? Demand that US troops get out. Be fun to see how Spins the Chimp lies his way out of that one. After all, should we honor our obligation and abide by that request, Iraq will be an Iranian controlled rump state within the year.
http://indiamonitor.com/news/readNews.jsp?ni=9786
Shygetz
BlogReeder–Yes, the IED attacks of Democrats on Republicans here is really getting out of hand. I’m glad someone had the balls to point it out.
And America has never had to deal with stateless actors before. Except for those pirates we fought around when our nation was founded. But wait, I forgot…In The Beginning, There Was Regan. So I guess we haven’t ever fought stateless actors before. Oh wait, we fought (and are still fighting) militaristic international drug cartels, which are stateless actors who often terrorize civillians. It’s always funny watching someone so thoroughly ignorant of history cry out “Unprecedented!”
Ancient Purple
Yeah. How horrible they decided to follow the laws and the Constitution.
Fiends.
Gratefulcub
All snark and shots at each other aside, there are problems arising from this election that need to be addressed.
The winner, by a majority possibley, is a religious Shiite party tied closely to Tehran. There are legitimate claims of voter fraud. The Shiite dominance has shown the Sunnis that even if they come out in force to vote, they have been reduced to a small disenfranchised minority. Then new ruling party of Shiites are not trusted by the Kurds. Somehow, these groups have to come up with a 66.6% consensus on a president. And the most important point is that the Sunnis, who we hoped would be drawn into politics and out of the insurgency, now see that they have very little political voice. Their choice is insurgency or to submit to a Shiite controlled nation.
Our next step is very important. Unfortunately, I feel that I can accurately predict the Washington debate:
Spineless Dem #1 with his finger in the air testing the most recent breeze of public opinion: “we need a timetable. The Iraqis need to know we aren’t going to be there forever, or they will never defend themselves.”
War President: “All glory be to Jesus. Brave Iraqis have risked their lives to fight for democracy, and it is on the march. Millions of people marched to get a purple thumb. The democrats don’t want you to know it, but we have turned the corner in Iraq. It’s hard work. We are fightin em there so we ain’t gotta fight em here. Cuttin n runnin would be a win for the turrists. Democrats and liberals are cowards unwilling to protect amurica. May god bless amurica.”
And while the dueling mindless talking point war continues, a real war continues.
BlogReeder
I don’t think people are focusing. It’s just one of the responses to the squealing from the left.
BlogReeder
I must have missed how many seats the “insurgents” won. Do you have a link?
Shygetz
It’s one of the more moronic responses to complaints from the left. It ranks right up there with The President took an oath to uphold the law, so what he did must be legal.
Paddy O'Shea
Grateful Cub: You’ve missed the point. There is the very good possibility that there is no solution. We either keep our troops there forever in order to hold off our enemies in both Tehran and within the Sunni insurgency, or we bail.
In other words, we are now looking at the consequences of having lost a war.
That there is no political entity with the guts to explain that to the American people is obvious.
The last president to try that was Gerald Ford.
Gratefulcub
It’s just one of the responses to the squealing from the left.
Damned squealing liberals.
Shygetz
Check out cromagnon’s link. It mentions that the fear is that the Sunnis will, once again, abandon the parlimentary process and turn to the insurgency to advance their political agenda, as they did when they boycotted the election last year. The Sunnis are the sectarian force that is causing everyone to fear civil war if we pull out. Are you willfully stupid?
Eural
I’m caught in a quite a conundrum here – on the one hand I am aghast at the horrible desecration of the Constitution and the unbelievable assault on our democracy being perpetrated by Bush and company. On the other hand, there is a strange sense of pleasure at watching conniving, hypocritical, inarticulate and assinine Republicans twist themselves into pretzels in order to defend the Worst President Ever.
Let me get this straight – Clinton had oral sex with an intern and our democracy was faced with a mortal danger. Bush has repeatedly and (now) openly broken the explicit Constitutional and statutory law he swore to uphold and the right’s response is – ?.
And to the Bush supporters out there – doesn’t it bother you that every argument you make (or pretend to make) is undermined within a few short days by new revelations which undermine the validity of the previous defense? Doesn’t it bother you that Bush keeps saying “trust me” even after he has not come through on one significant item of trust? The man has been a walking failure propped up by Pop’s money since birth. This is the right’s idea of a Godly and Strong leader? What a joke.
Sorry about the rant. Just had to get that off my chest.
BlogReeder
Gratefulclub, I understand your concerns. But what can be done?
Should we have just put up a puppet government that was pro-US? One thing about a constitutional democracy, a bad administration can’t stay in forever. It’s heartbreaking that Bush can’t run for a third term.
Gratefulcub
Paddy,
I was typing as your post went up.
I haven’t missed the point that there may not be a solution. There is no solution. There is no scenario where we make a set of choices and a dream democracy emerges.
But, we have to make decisions. From those decisions, the end result will be better/worse. If there isn’t an honest debate, then how can we possibley make the better decisions.
What worries me is that the end stages of propoganda and rhetoric is that the spewers start believing their own hype. Bush may actually believe that all is well, despite a few setbacks, but the liberal media won’t report the good news. And the democrats seem completely unable to have a thought that doesn’t revolve around politics. Make a kind of sorta statement and see how it plays. Murtha took off in the PR war, so they jumped on with him and started demanding a timetable. That’s not a policy, it is a talking point.
BlogReeder
Oh please! If you would be so kind as to show up what victory looks like?? You can’t, can you? Is it because the left can’t strategize their way out of a paper bag? They’re only good at squealing. It takes a good Republican administration to show them what to do.
Uberweiss
I think we are all a bit naive if we don’t believe that the government has been and will continue to watch and listen to everything we do. I’m not saying I am agreeing with it or anything and I’m not excusing Bush and that administration for every mistake they have made and their inability to be held responsible for their actions. But this isn’t the first time and it certantly won’t be the last. It’s just that we are finally hearing about it.
BlogReeder
Not like you.
Jody
That Kos link is just wrong. The Clinton administration execute a warrantless search of Aldrich Ames’s house.
The Other Steve
Actually a victory would look like a parade down the main street of Baghdad being greeted with flowers and candies.
I believe you mean strategerize.
I thought DougJ promised he was only going to post under his own name, and stop making up accounts?
Gratefulcub
You are assuming that Iraq is going to have a constitutional democracy. The process of democratization takes generations. When there have been several peaceful transfers of power that creat democratic traditions that are ingrained into the populace, then you have a constitutional democracy. I don’t see this group that will be in charge in January, peacefully losing an election and going back to campaign headquarters talking about giving it another shot in 4 years.
We can’t set up a puppet government any more than we can set up a democratic government. Anything we touch is tainted in Iraq. Not our fault, just a reality that any government established by an conquering and occupying army in the ME is not going to be seen as legit by a large portion of the population. They have a long history of being ruled by puppets.
What is to be done? I don’t know. I don’t think there is a good answer. There is no way for us to appease each faction within Iraq (and I am not even talking about the insurgents). We can’t force the Shiites to share power with the Sunnis. We can’t force the Sunnis to submit to their second class status. We can’t break the country up.
The break up of the country seems to be the fall back for many people. If we can’t make them get along, we will just form three nations and that will be the end of it. This isn’t actually feasible. They have intermarried, the regions have merged. Baghdad is multie sectarian, multi ethnic. There is no oil in the west. A peaceful breakup is not possible. A peaceful unity may not be possible.
Do you have an idea of what to do? (that wasn’t rhetorical, I would like to hear it)
DecidedFenceSitter
Aldrich Ames, as a foreign actor, i.e. he who was in the pay of a foreign nation, was a legitimate target.
Note, Clinton didn’t also search Ames’s friends and confidants without a warrant simply because they had contact with Ames.
Shygetz
BlogReeder is the reason why DougJ is often so effective at trolling, when he really means to satirize. What would Jonathan Swift have written if people were actually seriously making the argument that the Irish cannibalize their children to alleviate poverty? And yet, that is the analogous situation modern-day political satirists find themselves in. It might be funny if it were happening to someone else.
BlogReeder
BlogReeder
Damn block quotes too.
ppGaz
Well, that is the Nixon Doctrine, as established by Nixon himself: “When the president does it, it’s not illegal.”
Seriously. Presidents want more power than they have under strict construction of the Constitution and the law. So, in many cases, they simply take it, the idea being “Who’s going to stop me?”
In the present case, you have what amounts to a pissing contest going on between a more and more unfriendly Congress, and a more and more beleaguered president. Bush is betting that “I’m the one who wants to keep you safe, trust me” wins over “We’re the ones who are looking out for your civil liberties and the rule of law.”
Well, in my case, I don’t trust Bush. I have no reason to, and I can’t find that any reasonable person would do so. The majority of Americans no longer seem to trust him implicitly, either.
Gratefulcub
We won the war. It is the nation building that is hard work. Please give me one example of successful Republican led nation building?
Don’t use WWII as an example, unless you are willing to completely destroy Iraq with dresden style firebombing and nuclear weapons. i am sure we could build Iraq if we were first willing to completely destroy it, and then spend trilions of dollars rebuilding the entire nation.
Blue Neponset
That press briefing read like an Abbot and Costello routine. I have to hand it to Scott McClellan, he can obfuscate like nobody’s business.
Paddy O'Shea
Apparently Howard Dean has instituted a Freedom of Information lawsuit designed to find out exactly who it is that Fibs the Chimp was snooping on with his unauthorized
domestic spying.
Which is a good thing in my opinion. Nothing like knowing the names and indentities of the victims in order to understand a situation to its fullest.
And then if Republican Senators such as Arlen Spector gets their wish and the investigations into Snoops’s nefarious shenanigans kick in this January, oh what fun!
SmilingPolitely
So Clinton and Carter aren’t champions of freedom from terror after all? If only they were thinking outside the box, they could have had secret agencies randomly ransack American citizens homes in search of criminal activity or terror. But noooo… they had to conduct searches and wiretaps on non-citizens, and they were legal at that. Pfffttt…
It’s going to take a true He-Man of a president, with real fortitude and genuine Christian values, to fully protect our freedoms they way they should be protected.
The ball is in your corner President Bush. Protect our freedom. Make us a prison state. It’s your duty as the Supreme Defender Of The World. Your like Batman, Presidente Bush. How you protect us may not be exactly “legal”, but it’s for our own benefit. We cannot let the Joker destroy Gotham. And if you have to go rougue to defend us from evil-doers, you go right ahead. Commisioner Gordon and Gotham City are behind you 100%
Al Maviva
Interesting comments on this controversy from Clinton AAG John Schmidt here.
Edmund Dantes
http://mediafilter.org/caq/Caq53.court.html
For years, the FBI and other U.S. intelligence agencies have used FISA to gather information through phone taps and electronic bugs, all approved by a special panel of federal judges picked by Chief Justice William Rehnquist. President Bill Clinton expanded the law in 1995 to include what is known as “black bag” searches of homes, which are executed while residents are away and without their knowledge.
God damn Bill Clinton for working within the Constitution to get the law changed. I mean really what kind of president does that. Doesn’t he know it’s easier to just ignore the law, and do whatever the hell you want.
Doh. Bush will find no comfort in pointing to Bill Clinton’s record on FISA, but nice try.
BlogReeder
Well we have to start somewhere. It has to appear that the Iraqis are electing their own government. I’m not saying that in a nefarious way, but we have to get them to buy in. If there is no dissent between factions then it would look suspicious. It’s going to be a long process. It seems to me some on the left are so impatient.
The Other Steve
WOO HOO!!!!!
The anti-Clinton wingnuts are back. Oh, I so missed ya guys! The endlessly days of arguing whether shooting a pistol into a watermelon accurately demonstrated the blood splattering of Vince Fosters suicide. The definition of the word “Berm” as it appeared in the police report, and whether that referred to sloped ground.
Those were the days! And how Clinton covered up TWA 800, and how the ’93 WTC bombing was really a small nuclear device, or the Martial Law he was going to impose on Y2K. Yes! I used to love those articles. About how the Clinton’s were going to strip away all our rights, and bring the Black Helicopters down from Canada.
Life was so much more fun back then. When the President was simply involved in wild conspiracy theories, and not reckless above the law behavior contrary to the Constitution.
Uberweiss
I’m sorry but this really bothers me. Why is this okay but what President Bush is doing is really really bad? They didn’t know at the time that he was working for a foreign government. If it’s wrong for the republicans then it is wrong for the democrats. There should be no argument for that.
How do you know that for sure?
Paddy O'Shea
G-Cub: Nope, you’ve missed the point. Not talking spin, liberal media, Bush having lost touch with reality, none of that tired bullshit.
The Iraqis have just elected a Shi’ite dominated pro-Iranian Parliament that is going to ask us to get our asses out. And they will have the support of many others in that parliament as well, including (most ironically) the Sunni fundamentalists.
The Shi’ite majority is intent on aligning their country with Tehran. And once we are out the Sunni insurgency will serve as the excuse for Tehran to offer military aid to Iraq.
The scenario. Can ya handle it? Well, can you?
What can we do about it? Outside of accepting our defeat and licking our wounds, we can go to war with Iran.
You game? Gonna head on down to the recruiting office and take your place amongst our greatest heroes?
Of course you aren’t.
Edmund Dantes
Everyone keeps pointing to that FISC 2002 court case. It only affirms the presidents abilities in respect to FOREIGN intelligence.
It’s a distinction that a lot of talking points from defenders tend to gloss over. FISA allows all kinds of shit if the thing is foreign. It’s once you get into things that touch upon U.S. persons that the FISA statutes put up roadblocks, and why as soon as you find out you’ve fallen into U.S. person’s communication you need to go to FISA and say why you should be allowed to continue. Bush and his team decided that that was just too much effort.
The Other Steve
Very interesting.
And if it were Clinton we were talking about, I would certainly approve. But we are not. We are talking about Bush here, whom I don’t trust any further than I could throw him.
So I’m against the President having this authority as long as Bush is in office. Remove Bush, put in someone I can trust, and then I’m all for it.
Got a complaint about that? I will simply refer you to the vapid Republican partisan defense of Bush, while at the same time attacking Clinton for doing something not nearly as egregious.
The Other Steve
You would think so.
But apparently it was only wrong when Clinton did it, according to our Republican friends.
You know. I think we’d get a lot further here if Republicans simply apologized for hounding Clinton and trying to impeach him, recognizing that it was a wrong and traitorous act.
Think about it.
Uberweiss
You make a damn good point.
HH
If Kos says it I believe it, that settles it.
Edmund Dantes
Does anyone see the irony in the supporters of an administration that came to power by saying stuff like “we are going to change the culture of washington”, “we will bring honor and integrity back to the white house”, et. al first defense is “Clinton did it” (even if Clinton really didn’t)?
HH
Gratefulcub
Paddy,
No, I really do understand your point. I am aware that we may very well be asked to leave.
First of all, I don’t think you understand where I come from: I was never for this war. I never thought Iraq was a threat even if they did have WMD, because I knew they didn’t have nukes. I also knew that there was very little activity between Iraq and terrorists. So as for your ‘sign up to be a hero’ BS……
But, we are there. And we do need to leave as soon as possible. But in doing so we have to leave the best possible situation. There are possible nightmare scenarios that we need to avoid. (Iraq aligned with Iran, suppression of Sunnis that draw other Sunni Arab nations into the fray, destabilizing the region)
So, I am just asking that we have a better debate than ‘timetable vs stay the course.’
HH
And if Newsmax says it, they’re lying, that settles it.
HH
“Life was so much more fun back then.”
Yeah it’s so much more fun for you to laugh at Freepers than Kossacks when they say the same BS about Bush I imagine.
Gratefulcub
Yes, which has caused a whole host of new problems to deal with. Those are the issues I am saying need to be dealt with, how do you deal with them. I know ‘Dems don’t have a plan’ is a good talking point, but what is the GOP plan? Staying the course is silly rhetoric.
To get the Sunnis to buy in, we have to make them accept second class status in a nation run by the Shia super majority. Good luck with that.
That’s the nation building part i was talking about. What is the Republican plan for the next 10 years of nation building? George Bush said in 2000 that we shouldn’t use our military to nation build, he is proving that. We need a discussion about what we should do. There has not been a long term plan discussed. We stand down when they stand up? Again, catchy little soundbite, but completely meaningless.
BlogReeder
How about we all stop talking about the past and comparing it to now? Vietnam, quagmire, Iraq-Iran War, National Guard and any other thing that seems to be in the news all the time.
HH
“And if it were Clinton we were talking about, I would certainly approve. But we are not. We are talking about Bush here, whom I don’t trust any further than I could throw him.”
The circular logic of the Bush-haters in all its glory.
HH
The as-yet-unposted link to Goldstein (Cole is slacking off today) – http://www.proteinwisdom.com/index.php/weblog/entry/19560/
Al Maviva
Okay, cool. I always respect it when somebody makes a principled argument.
Uberweiss
How can you really trust any of them? From my point of view politicans are supposed to be the voice of the people. Does anybody really believe that they are? They are the voice of their campaign contributers and that is it. Most politicans don’t give a rat’s ass about the american people only the people and company’s that help get them elected. The only real difference between the republicans and the democrats is one party is fanatical and they other are a bunch of pussies.
OCSteve
You guys are getting your hopes up for nothing.
Article II gets interpreted one of two ways:
-The powers of the President are limited to those enumerated in the article.
-The President has executive power period, except as limited by provisions in the article.
Each administration has to decide which way to approach Article II. In general though, the founding fathers intended the powers of the commander-in-chief in the conduct of a war to be plenary. Congress and the courts can not micro-manage a war – you have to have one person in overall command. That’s why they call him the commander-in-chief. The President has the constitutional responsibility and the power to keep the country safe.
FISA was not meant to limit the inherent authority of the President, and that has been upheld. I am sure you have seen this by now but I will post it again:
You folks that are thinking finally, finally, we have what we need to bring down the man…. You are going to be sorely disappointed. The President has extraordinary powers in a time of war. In this case, the very heart of what you are crowing about, the President’s constitutional authority to conduct warrantless intelligence surveillance, has already been upheld by the appropriate courts. Those on the left saying this is grounds for impeachment (including prominent Democrats) are going way out there on that ledge. Really – would you all get serious about winning this war? This entire thing was about promoting a book and providing cover for legislators to vote against or filibuster the Patriot Act renewal.
Can you save some outrage for the actual crime here – which was the intentional leaking of classified information.
Got to run guys. Have at me. Here, I’ll get you started:
OCSteve you are a fucking moron….
OCSteve wants to live in a fascist regime….
OCSteve wants to trade away his civil liberties to feel safer from the imagined trumped up threat…
BushHitlerDictator…
Krista
I don’t care which president does it. It’s wrong. Should we investigate and go after past presidents who may have done it? I think we might want to first consider investigating and going after the current president, who is currently doing it. It irks me to no end that all of these people are talking about what horrible things Clinton may or may not have done, while completely ignoring the fact that Bush IS doing horrible things, right now!
You can’t say that something was bad when (if) Clinton did it, but fine and necessary while Bush is doing it.
Gratefulcub
Trust? You are talking about trust? The point of checks and balances and rule of law is that we don’t and shouldn’t have to trust our government.
President Bush may have only the best of intentions. It doesn’t matter. He has opened up an avenue in which the Executive can spy on american citizens without the oversight of another branch of government. It doesn’t matter who is in the office, or who will be in the office, or if you can ‘trust’ him/her or not.
Our founders knew, above all else, that people weren’t to be trusted with unchecked power. So, they wrote a constitution. Without it, we have the rule of man, not the rule of law.
BlogReeder
These aren’t our problems. We have to be able to step back and let them sort it out. We can’t abandon them (like we did in Vietnam in 1975.. oooh … I said I wasn’t going to do that). It’s going to be tough and Republicans and Democrats have to be on the same page for this to work.
Paul Wartenberg
I just read McClellan’s attempt to answer questions about congressional oversight on the wiretapping issue and came away with the feeling I’ve just witnessed an updated version of “Who’s on First?”
The argument I’d like to make is that while a briefing from the White House does inform Congress (in a select fashion), when said briefings tell those informed not to say anything about the briefing it eliminates their ability to conduct any oversight. Not only that, but it turns out those congresspersons were not fully informed by those briefings. How can you have oversight when you’re not told what’s going on?
Gratefulcub
This had nothing to do with conducting the war against Iraq, or against Afghanistan.
If you are talking about the war on terror. I am going to have to get flamed for calling bullshit.
It is not a war. The cold war was not a war. If you consider these two things wars, then we have been at war since 1941. We can’t declare ourselve at war, and give the president unchecked power every time we feel threatened.
Jody
I should comment that my Aldrich Ames link is intended to neither prove nor disprove the legality of said searches, but rather to disprove Kos’s assertion and thereby disprove Tim’s assertion that Clinton did not order warrantless searches of American citizens.
Gratefulcub
We overthrew a government, left a vacuum, managed the rebuilding of a government, held elections. The results could be disasterous, that IS our problem. Maybe your solution is a hands off let them sort it out approach. But, the problem is ours, even if the solution is not.
OCSteve
War was delcared on us. Is it only war if both sides declare? Was the Korean War not a war? How about Vietnam? No formal declaration for those either.
DecidedFenceSitter
Um, admittedly I’m not perfectly educated on this; however, based on this, I feel relatively sure that they followed the law in that case. I don’t personally agree with or like the law; but if we’re going to get into a descriptive debate, I’ll argue what is; versus the normative debate of what I believe should be.
Frankly, I don’t. It is entirely possible that he did. I can’t prove a negative, simply the lack of proof of the positive. However, I do know that no one’s come forth and broken the silence. And if the Bush policy-makers cannot maintain a silence on this, nothing makes me believe that Clinton’s era maintained the silence. Bush’s group has amazing message and policy control.
Uberweiss
To a certain extent I agree with this comment. The government does love to throw the word war around. The “war” on drugs “war” on terrorism. I wouldn’t however go as far as saying the vietnam wasn’t a war or even the cold war wasn’t a war. Was it a war to the extent of the Korean or WWII and WWI, NO. None the less we do throw the word war around way to much. Why can’t we just the fight instead of drugs?
perry como
Was the Cold War a war? Do terrorists pose a greater threat to the US than the Soviet Union did? We have the benefit of hindsight now, but try to put yourself in the position of someone in 1968.
You claim that the President has plenary powers in a time of war. Since you believe that a time of war can exist without the declaration from Congress, then the President has the power to wage war and at the same time can assume plenary powers with which he can engage in that war. The War on Terror may last decades and there really is no measure of “victory”. In fact, the WoT could be a permanent war. Is it your position that the President, whoever that may be, can assume unenumerated powers to do whatever he sees fit in a permanent state of war?
This isn’t a contrived and tired left vs. right issue. This is about the scope of Presidential authority. Does the Executive branch get to assume absolute authority in a time of war?
DecidedFenceSitter
Out of curiosity, who declared war on us? I won’t get into pendantic defintions of war, but generally war is between states.
Now if you wish to say that in this fourth generational warfare model you can make war against non-state actors; then which non-state actors are you fighting? And if so, I would presume that the person who has declared war on us is OBL; who Bush in the last year or so, declared to be not a threat and that he isn’t so worried.
Who, either as a state or not-state actor are we at war with?
BlogReeder
Maybe that’s a better way to put it. Nobody knows what’s going to happen. Iraq was secular so maybe that will defuse some of the religious fervor. But it could mean that there will be a backlash of pent up religious zeal.
jg
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/12/index.html#008707
Bruce Moomaw
A shame Al Maviva didn’t quote the last paragraphs of John Schmidt’s column:
“Should we be afraid of this inherent presidential power? Of course. If surveillance is used only for the purpose of preventing another Sept. 11 type of attack or a similar threat, the harm of interfering with the privacy of people in this country is minimal and the benefit is immense. The danger is that surveillance will not be used solely for that narrow and extraordinary purpose.
“But we cannot eliminate the need for extraordinary action in the kind of unforeseen circumstances presented by Sept.11. I do not believe the Constitution allows Congress to take away from the president the inherent authority to act in response to a foreign attack. That inherent power is reason to be careful about who we elect as president, but it is authority we have needed in the past and, in the light of history, could well need again.”
OK, let’s ask the obvious followup question: how DO you stop the president from abusing such power beyond “preventing another Sept. 11 type of attack”? Is Schmidt saying that any attack upon the US, however small, means that the president should have totally unrestricted dictatorial power? Even if (as Richard Posner also said in the Washington Post last night) the new types of threats the US is confronted with require some shrinkage of civil liberties, does that mean that we get rid of ALL of them? To ask the question asked by so many in the wake of this new revelation (including George Will), why the hell didn’t Bush ask Congress to set up a system of looser restrictions — instead of secretly ditching ALL restrictions upon the President’s power to spy on Americans for whatever reason he singlehandedly chooses?
Lines
Terror declared war on the US. Don’t you remember? It was a lovely spring day, the US and Terror were traipsing hand in hand across a beautiful spring meadow when Terror fell down and scraped its knee. It believed that the US had done it, and screamed to the Dog’s “I declair war on thee!”. And from that point on, the US and terror have been at war.
Or maybe God told him to.
BlogReeder
Silly, it’s the Global War on Terror. We have to get the jahidis to change their minds.
Darrell
You “knew” that huh? Incredible ignorance on the left. This flap is no different than the left screaming out of ignorance that ‘WP is a chemical weapon’..
Darrell
Source:
So what did fascist Bush do? He used his authority to gather warrantless intelligence on foreigners. Any intel from intelligence gather without warrant CANNOT be used against a US citizen.
Fascist Bush is shredding the constitution! [/loons]
jg
http://thinkprogress.org/2005/12/21/appeals-court-myth/
The link above has the whole quote and the context around it. Nice try Darrell.
Darrell
Is English your first language? Because what you posted, “All the courts to have decided the issue held that the president did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence … We take for granted that the president does have that authority means that the President DID HAVE such authority. What is your point then?
Ancient Purple
Darrell,
You are a complete idiot, devoid of anything resembling a brain.
Any president can assert anything he wants to. That, however, doesn’t mean he is right.
Also, the quote from Gorelick was in 1994, a year before FISA was changed to include physical searches – a change that was encouraged by… Bill Clinton.
Of course, you have been told this before, but you completely ignore it because it doesn’t suit you.
How convenient.
searp
Darrell: you keep saying things that indicate you know what was done in the NSA program. Please specify how you know. If you are simply repeating hearsay then it does nothing to further the conversation.
jg
read the link. The case you sited isn’t relevant. Its prior to the law change that Bush finds inconvenient.
Darrell
The powers being exercised by the Bush admin here are small potatoes and perfectly within the scope of his powers at President. What’s more, Bush’s program was entirely reasonable and far less draconian and far more monitored than any other wartime President in history that I can see. I challenge anyone to prove me wrong on that point.
Let’s see, Congressional oversight, check. Judicial consultation and review, check. Yeah, Bush is really usurping the constitution there isn’t he? You guys on the left really have a ‘solid’ point
PotVsKtl
Isn’t it interesting that TallDave hasn’t chimed in after so bravely copying and pasting the latest talking points into the previous thread with no research or critical thinking on his part.
jg
Have you read the link yet Darrell?
Darrell
Where did I mention “NSA”? Nice strawman. Why don’t you try actual facts and logic next time instead of dishonesty? You’ll feel better about yourself
Darrell
Yes I did, and the quote “FISA could not encroach on the President’s constitutional power” stands out… and then claims without explaination that the reverse is true for some other case. What the President’s program does, is authorize warrantless gathering of information against FOREIGNERS. What then are you arguing is out of the scope of the President’s powers?
Can you lefties offer anything more than dishonest straw men?
jg
Yet the NSA guy running the program (Its an NSA program Darrell) says they didn’t go back for the retroactive warrants because of the paperwork. Check?
The Other Steve
Bush-hater? I don’t hate Bush. I just hate what he does.
That’s what makes you and I different, you see. While you hated Clinton even though he had good policies. I love Bush, I just hate his awful policies.
Obviously you didn’t get the joke. :-)
jg
The case is proir to the law change Bush made. The quote you posted is irrelevant to your point. I’m not saying you’re wrong. I’m saying the link doesn’t support you. The fact you think it does makes me wonder why I’m even talking to you.
How do they know its FOREIGNERS until they gather?
Darrell
You’re right, check on that. How does that change the FACT in any way, that Bush obtained judicial consultation and review as well as congressional oversight on his program?
Answer: One has nothing to do with the other and you have no point whatsoever
Darrell
They don’t. But if they run across ANY information which could be used against a US citizen under that warrantless program, not one bit of it can be used against the US citizen. What Bush did is make a fairly trivial, reasonable interpretation of the law
John S.
Darrell/Right Wing Blogosphere: Day Two
Still nothing to see here. Move along.
Unfortunately for this theory, a federal judge has resigned – apparently in protest over the actions of the Bush administration.
Much ado about nothing? Doesn’t seem that way, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see what an independent investigation turns up.
Darrell
The founding fathers gave the President certain powers to protect the nation in matters related to national security. Bush followed requirements for legal review and consultation with NSA legal counsel, FISA judges, and the AG. You want to debate constitutional powers given to the President? fine. But what’s happening here is not honest debate, it’s a hounding and smearing of the President, without basis, because those on the left hate him so much, while pretending they are just giving patriotic dissent.
Well listen up ‘patriots’, where then is your outrage of those who leaked details on this classified program? Crickets chirping
ppGaz
Kevin Drum, today.
John S.
They did not endow the President with such powers that he could act as a Monarch (for obvious reasons). As Patrick Henry, one of our founding fathers once said:
Got that Darrell? That’s how REAL patriots feel about how this country is supposed to operate. Your defense of the President in the name of war runs contrary to every ideology that this nation was founded on. So spare us your diatribe on ‘founding fathers’ and ‘patriots’, because you haven’t the first clue what either of these two groups of Americans stood for.
Darrell
What Kevin Drum forgot to quote from Benjamin Franklin:
Oh my
Bruce Moomaw
(1) “Judicial confirmation and oversight”, Darrell? Judge Robertson quit the FISA court yesterday precisely because Bush was NOT subjecting his searches to any judicial oversight. Quoting last night’s Washington Post:
“Robertson indicated privately to colleagues in recent conversations that he was concerned that information gained from warrantless NSA surveillance could have then been used to obtain FISA warrants. FISA court Presiding Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who had been briefed on the spying program by the administration, raised the same concern in 2004 and insisted that the Justice Department certify in writing that it was not occurring.
” ‘They just don’t know if the product of wiretaps were used for FISA warrants — to kind of cleanse the information,’ said one source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the classified nature of the FISA warrants. ‘What I’ve heard some of the judges say is they feel they’ve participated in a Potemkin court.’…
“Some FISA judges said they were saddened by the news of Robertson’s resignation and want to hear more about the president’s program.
” ‘I guess that’s a decision he’s made and I respect him,’ said Judge George P. Kazen, another FISA judge. ‘But it’s just too quick for me to say I’ve got it all figured out.’ ”
(2) “Congressional oversight”, Darrell? Quoting the Post again: “Bush said Monday that the White House briefed Congress more than a dozen times. But those briefings were conducted with only a handful of lawmakers [eight, to be precise] who were sworn to secrecy and prevented from discussing the matter with anyone [including the other members of their intelligence committees!] or from seeking outside legal opinions.” Now, THAT’S Congressional oversight.
(3) No, Bush’s warrantless searches were NOT just aimed at foreigners. That’s what the entire fuss has been about — including the complaints from Sens. Specter, McCain, Hagel, Snowe, and Lindsay Graham.
(4) And, yes, “Think Progress” is entirely correct in accusing John Schmidt of totally distorting what that 2002 FISA Appeals Court decision said. It explicitly did NOT say that the President had the right, despite FISA, to conduct warrantless spying on US citizens without a warrant from the FISA Court — the FISA Court had in fact issued a warrant allowing that particular US citizen to be surveilled, because there was probable cause to think that he might be a foreign agent: “There is no disagreement between the government and the FISA court as to the propriety of the electronic surveillance; the court found that the government had shown probable cause to believe that the target is an agent of a foreign power and otherwise met the basic requirements of FISA. The government’s application for a surveillance order contains detailed information to support its contention that the target, who is a United States person, is aiding, abetting, or conspiring with others in international terrorism.”
What the decision said was simply that the FISA Court acted improperly in saying that any evidence gathered this way about the guy’s activities could not then be used to actually criminally prosecute him for the crime of espionage: “The court’s decision from which the government appeals imposed certain requirements and limitations accompanying an order authorizing electronic surveillance of an ‘agent of a foreign power’ as defined in FISA…The FISA court authorized the surveillance, but imposed certain restrictions, which the government contends are neither mandated nor authorized by FISA. Particularly, the court ordered that ‘law enforcement officials shall not make recommendations to intelligence officials concerning the initiation, operation, continuation or expansion of FISA searches or surveillances. Additionally, the FBI and the Criminal Division [of the Department of Justice] shall ensure that law enforcement officials do not direct or control the use of the FISA procedures to enhance criminal prosecution, and that advice intended to preserve the option of a criminal prosecution does not inadvertently result in the Criminal Division’s directing or controlling the investigation using FISA searches and surveillances toward law enforcement objectives.’ ” The Appeals Court said simply that — provided that the FISA Court had issued a warrant allowing such surveillance — the government COULD use the evidence provided by such surveillance for criminal prosecution, despite the peculiar legal nature of the FISA Court. This, of course, is a tremendously lesser loosening of restrictions than what Bush has been trying to pull — namely, to carry out wiretaps on US citizens entirely on his personal whim, for any reason he chooses, with no warrant from the FISA Court or any other type of court at all.
HH
“I don’t hate Bush. I just hate what he does.”
God bless Jonathan Chait, at least he’s honest.
“Sentiments like that made Franklin the greatest of the Founding Fathers, a man whose good judgment, good sense, and fundamental trust in his fellow citizens we would do well to rediscover.”
And it was a quote that was used against the likes of Drum 1000 times ovedr during the Clinton years.
Darrell
Who the f*ck made Robertson god? Didn’t he rule that Guantanamo detention of terrorists caught on the battlefield was “illegal”?
The Other Steve
Amazing. Doesn’t that sound an awful lot like the Arkansas Project.
It appears to me you are projecting your own weakness onto your opponents.
you see the difference is, with the Arkansas Project there were no real issues. They were all fabricated, just to smear the President.
On the contrary here, we’re complaining about legitimate issues of Constitutional authority and protections.
The Other Steve
Since when did I become Jonathan Chait?
And here we have the circular logic of the right.
It was valid criticism towards Clinton, but now we should just all shut up because it is Bush.
Darrell
Bush followed requirements for legal review and consultation with NSA legal counsel, FISA judges, and the AG. Tell us Other Steve, what are the specific “legitimate” issues of Constitutional authority which have been raised on this or other BJ threads?
HH
Looks like Schmidt cut off the Kossacks at the knees. Let the character assassination begin!
HH
Obviously you didn’t get either joke.
Bruce Moomaw
And, Darrell, the excruciatingly obvious reason that US presidents have always been forbidden to spy on US citizens without a warrant — even if they DON’T use what they’ve learned in legal prosecutions — is (as even Schmidt and Posner point out) because an unscrupulous administration can effectively use information which it thus acquires for illegal blackmail, or other kinds of illegal harassment, or to sabotage a political opponent’s campaign strategy. Does the word “Watergate” ring a bell?
Darrell
Where is the outrage from you ‘patriots’ on the left who are silent about those officials who violated their secrecy oath by leaking classified info to the the media?
John S.
The Dynamic of a typical Bush scandal
So, what step are we up to now? Somewhere between #7 and #8. Now that’s what I call progress.
Darrell
That says it all right there
Bruce Moomaw
Well, Darrell, as the article pointed out — since apparently you can’t read — he’s hardly the only FISA judge unhappy about this, precisely because none of the FISA judges knew Bush was engaged in it at all. Nor are Democrats the only ones uneasy about it; those notorious pinkos George Will, Lindsay Graham, Specter, Hagel and McCain are raising hell about it too.
Perry Como
This entire program of domestic spying has been supervised by NSA judges, DoJ judges and the Attorney General. If you liberal partisans want your precious “checks and balances”, there they are. If there was no oversight, even though there was, it doesn’t matter. The President has absolute authority to do anything He deems necessary to protect us from blowtorch wielding terrorists. It’s right there in Article II:
See! The President has plenary powers. Clear as day. Our Founding Fathers had no qualms with an unrestrained Executive.
John S.
I guess in Darrell’s little world it is impossible to differentiate between blowing the whistle on possibly illegal activity by the President and blowing the whistle purely for the purposes of political retribution. Unless there was some altruistic reason for blowing Valerie Plame’s cover that only Darrell knows about…
Bruce Moomaw
“Where is the outrage from you ‘patriots’ on the left who are silent about those officials who violated their secrecy oath by leaking classified info to the the media?”
Pretty much where it was in the matter of Deep Throat, and for exactly the same reason. Illegal leaks to reveal illegal activities on the part of the President are not quite the same thing as illegal leaks of legal activities (such as, say, those of Joe Wilson).
John S.
LOL
Now that is what I call comedy gold!
Perry Como
Oh, and Clinton did it first.
Bruce Moomaw
In this matter, we may also quote McCain criticizing Sen. Rockefeller yesterday for NOT violating his secrecy oath: “If I thought someone was breaking the law, I don’t care if it was classified or unclassified, I would stand up and say ‘the law’s being broken here.’ “
TallDave
Tim, did you really just cite a DailyKos post as proof of something?
LOL As usual over there, the whole premise is flawed. The NSA wiretaps were not directed at American citizens, but at Al Qaeda terrorists.
Darrell
At present, it is a LEGAL program, not an illegal one. Bush took required steps obtaining approval from NSA judges and the AG. Scumbags who disagreed with the policy but whose job was to implement it, leaked to the press in violation of their secrecy oath. Again, it was not an illegal program. But the left is silent about prosecuting the leakers because they hurt Bush. Unprincipled and dishonest? Obviously the case
Ancient Purple
I didn’t realize that I have to express outrage based on your timetable.
TallDave
As Max Boot puts it:
The rule of thumb seems to be that although it’s treasonous for pro-Bush partisans to spill secrets that might embarrass an administration critic, it’s a public service for anti-Bush partisans to spill secrets that might embarrass the administration. The determination of which secrets are OK to reveal is, of course, to be made not by officials charged with protecting our nation but by journalists charged with selling newspapers.
Darrell
I’ve read the exact opposite, that FISA judges knew about the executive order and participated directly in the review. I’ll dig for the source, but I think you’ll be proven ignorant once again.
Darrell
Of course, like most on the left, your outrage is selective based on whether or not Bush and/or Republicans are smeared. It’s who you are
TallDave
Indeed, that’s really the crux of the case here: the Founders wanted the Executive to actually be able to protect the country from foreign threats, and in fact no court has ever held the President did not have the power to use wiretaps this way in regards to foreign threats.
Do we need to bring up ECHELON?
John S.
Well, thanks for that crack analysis that flies in the face of reality. Who gave you this thoughtful analysis of the situation (where most of the facts still haven’t surfaced yet), Mr. Tumnus?
TallDave
Reality in this case apparently being defined as “whatever Kos says.”
No one has yet produced a cite where anyone has ruled this was illegal.
Again, ECHELON anyone?
Bruce Moomaw
By all means dig, Darrell. It directly contradicts what not only Robertson, but ALL the rest of the FISA Court explicitly said in that Post article. (While you’re at it, take a look at George Will’s Post column on the subject, pointing out — as everyone else with an IQ approaching three figures has — that the entire fuss over this case has been precisely because Bush did NOT consult with either any courts or Congress when issuing these wiretaps, and therefore “violated a statute”. )
John S.
Darrell and TD:
I enjoy watching you two uphold your end of the script:
Keep up the good work!
Darrell
I guess you didn’t get the memo that there is NO dispute whatsoever that Bush obtained NSA judicial approval as well as that of the AG. It’s apparent you really are that stupid.
TallDave
John S,
And you’re doing yeoman work for the terrorists.
John S.
Reality in this case is that NOBODY REALLY KNOWS WHAT HAPPENED, one way or the other.
Because there has not yet been an investigation into this matter – if there ever will be. Just because the evidence hasn’t been compiled one way or the other doesn’t prove or disprove anything.
But keep pretending that I’m saying Bush is guilty while fervently asserting that he is innocent.
OCSteve
It is congress’s responsibility to formally declare war. However, since WWII they have pretty much passed on that responsibility to the president. SCOTUS has upheld that the president, as commander-in-chief of the military, has the authority to recognize a “state of war”. The president typically requests a resolution from congress authorizing action. So nobody formally declares wars. We call it a police action or something else. Congress gives it’s blessing in the form of a resolution.
Ultimately congress retains control because they have the purse strings – they can cut off funding at any time (see Vietnam, funding of the South Vietnamese Army).
Congress passed resolutions concerning 9/11, Iraq, GWI – and they pass the spending bills to support the effort. They can also cut off the money at any point if they wanted to.
So I would say that congress ultimately controls the duration of a conflict, but the President has the most say in conducting how the conflict is managed.
John S.
LOL
I’ll just chalk that up as an outrageously stupid statement (big surprise coming from you) meant to illicit an equally outrageous response.
If I didn’t find it so laughable, you may have had something there.
TallDave
John S,
LOL You clearly don’t know much about this issue. It doesn’t have to be investigated for there to be judicicial precedent.
TallDave
John S,
While you’re laughing, Osama is plotting. Thanks to people like you, we now have less chance of knowing what they’re up to.
Congrats. Maybe you’ll get a signed photo from him or something.
TallDave
Sigh.
Form Lenin to UBL, there will always be useful idiots to lend a helping hand to our enemies.
Darrell
Oh yeah? I say you’re a lying sack of shit, as neither Robertson or the rest of the FISA court say any such thing, and I read Robertson’s statement. FISA was well aware of Bush’s executive order that took the (entirely reasonable) position that the law didn’t require them to get warrants if the targets of the surveillance weren’t US citizens. In Dec. 2002, FISA
Source is former Associate Attorney General under Clinton
John S.
Blah, blah, blah.
Really, does this line of insipid drivel really provoke anyone into defending themselves against a charge so ludicrous and dishonest?
DecidedFenceSitter
But isn’t Osama not a threat?
TallDave
From PW:
Clinton associate attorney general John Schmidt, writing in the Chicago Tribune (h/t Charles Martin):
Sept. 11, 2001, authorization to the National Security Agency to carry out electronic surveillance into private phone calls and e-mails is consistent with court decisions and with the positions of the Justice Department under prior presidents.
The president authorized the NSA program in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks on America. An identifiable group, Al Qaeda, was responsible and believed to be planning future attacks in the United States. Electronic surveillance of communications to or from those who might plausibly be members of or in contact with Al Qaeda was probably the only means of obtaining information about what its members were planning next. No one except the president and the few officials with access to the NSA program can know how valuable such surveillance has been in protecting the nation.
In the Supreme Court’s 1972 Keith decision holding that the president does not have inherent authority to order wiretapping without warrants to combat domestic threats, the court said explicitly that it was not questioning the president’s authority to take such action in response to threats from abroad.
Four federal courts of appeal subsequently faced the issue squarely and held that the president has inherent authority to authorize wiretapping for foreign intelligence purposes without judicial warrant.
In the most recent judicial statement on the issue, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, composed of three federal appellate court judges, said in 2002 that “All the … courts to have decided the issue held that the president did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence … We take for granted that the president does have that authority.”
TallDave
John S,
Do useful idiots ever realize they’re helping our enemies?
Uberweiss
I was wondering something. I know that if you make a call from your house or from a cell phone, ECHELON can pick that up and hear what you are saying. What if you were to call from a pay phone? Can they listen to what you are saying then?
John S.
LOL
Goddamn, you are barrel of laughs!
But seriously, when Bin Laden planned on the best case response from the United States that would further his cause, he had people like you and Darrell in mind, not me.
The fact that you are unable to see that your views are eroding this country in precisely the fashion that the terrorists were hoping for is not only ironic, but tragic.
John S.
I don’t know Dave, do you realize it?
TallDave
uberweiss:
Supposedly anything that goes through a PBX is monitored. It wouldn’t matter where it originated, just how far it went.
TallDave
John S,
That doesn’t work, because I’m not arguing against the legality of a program to monitor our enemies.
TallDave
John S,
Yes, I’m sure Osama’s master plan was for us to monitor terrorist phone calls, thus striking a fearsome blow against the civil liberties… of Al Qaeda.
Woe is us.
Uberweiss
Thanks TallDave
John S.
Neither am I. But what you ARE arguing for is the President to have unchecked powers in a time of war, including the ability to order the surveillance of American citizens without any oversight whatsoever.
Patrick Henry – along with most of our founding fathers – are rolling over in their graves at what you seem to think passes for American ideals.
Bruce Moomaw
Your “Source”, Darrell, is John Schmidt, whom I and other people showed above to have totally — and ridiculously — misquoted what that FISA Appeals Court decision actually said. READ what I said, dammit. (Including, I may add, the quote from the end of Schmidt’s own Tribune column on how dangerous it is to give the President totally unrestricted power to wiretap anyone with no court warrant whatsoever, even in wartime.)
Now let us note that — as numerous other people have noted — the FISA Court has disallowed only 4 of the 19,000 warrant requests during its history, and explicitly allows the govement to wiretap anyone it chooses for three straight days before even ASKING for a warrant. So why would Bush want to circumvent it? The only possible non-sinister explanation, as Posner and Kevin Drum say, is that the government is engaged in “data mining”: having computers listen in on thousands of phone conversations simultaneously and alert their human controllers only when they detect some interesting catchword. Maybe this technology is useful and justifiable as a new anti-terrorism tool — but in that case, as legions of people (including Will) have pointed out, some legal restrictions on it will still be necessary to keep the President from turning into a dictator; so why didn’t Bush consult Congress to set up those new necessary legal rules?
Stop drooling hysterically down your chin, Darrell, and start reading and thinking instead.
Darrell
I love how ignorant leftists seize upon the resignation of Judge Robertson as some kind of “proof” of Bush administration wrongdoing. Just wait till his whacked prior rulings come to light, especially the one in which he tried to give Al Queda terrorists caught on the battlefield full POW rights. Judge Robertson asserted that Gitmo detention was illegal for such terrorists.
You take that Judge Robertson ball and run with it lefties. His rulings coming to light will play great with middle America. Louder now.. I can’t hear you!
TallDave
But what you ARE arguing for is the President to have unchecked powers in a time of war
No, just the power to monitor Al Qaeda communications without a warrant.
Perry Como
It doesn’t matter. NSA judges have been all over this.
Bruce Moomaw
Isn’t it nice that TallDave somehow knows that any president with totally unlimited power to wiretap anyone in the US will always use such power only against “our enemies”? Including, say, any president with the initials “RN”? Clearly TallDave is in the wrong country; he’d be much more at home in North Korea.
John S.
No, his master plan is to get America to cease to resemble America – while having Americans happily embrace it in the name of America.
Eroding civil liberties, living in a constant state of fear, the further consolidation of power of the executive branch without any congressional oversight and the eventual push towards a government that more closely resembles an autocratic theocracy are all on Bin Laden’s holiday wish list.
Give yourself a big pat on the back for being one of Santa’s little helpers on that.
KC
Well, it looks like the LATimes has the goods on the administration’s domestic spying rationals. I just can’t get over how much conservatives sound like communists right now.
Bruce Moomaw
Incidentally, why are any of us wasting our time arguing with these two fruitcakes? At least Al Maviva recognizes that it’s posible to abuse such power, and that it DOES require some oversight by someone other than the President.
TallDave
Because like all the other idiots repeating that meaningless datum, you’re ignoring the fact that not every NSA wiretap request makes it to FISA; the ones that would be denied are almost always filtered out by DOJ before they’re submitted. And before they can even be submitted, the probable cause standard has to be met, which means gathering documentation, etc, all of which takes time.
John S.
Without oversight, without restrictions, without accountability…
Like I said, you want the President to have unchecked powers. Bruce is right – you may be more comfortable in North Korea.
John S.
Point taken.
Bruce Moomaw
Quoting the end of that LA Times article mentioned by KC:
“The officials from U.S. intelligence, law enforcement and counter-terrorism agencies said they agreed to discuss the case — and Bush’s reference to it — because they did not believe it supported the administration’s position that the FISA court should be circumvented in certain high-profile and urgent terrorism cases.
” ‘It’s total hubris. It’s arrogance by the people doing this,’ said a second senior U.S. counter-terrorism official. ‘This is a 24-hour thing, and you can get these kinds of warrants immediately. I think they are just being lazy.’ ”
Let’s HOPE they’re just being lazy.
TallDave
I guess I must have missed that bin Laden speech where he talked about eroding Congerssional oversight. Gee, I guess we should just let him kill Americans then, since wiretaping terrorists makes us a police state.
Or, our civil liberties are just fine and you’re an idiot helping make it easier for him to kill us.
Darrell
You have not “showed” or demonstrated any such thing. Her is the FISA statement again in context which doesn’t change a damn thing:
Anything in that FISA review contradicting that very clear language? No?
TallDave
Well, the voters think you’re the fruitcakes.
Welcome to democracy.
jg
Nice of someone to admit they just look for reasons to dismiss anything not in thier favor. Can’t wait for some old Robertson rulings to make a nice smokescreen huh?
Bruce Moomaw
“…Like all the other idiots repeating that meaningless datum, you’re ignoring the fact that not every NSA wiretap request makes it to FISA; the ones that would be denied are almost always filtered out by DOJ before they’re submitted. And before they can even be submitted, the probable cause standard has to be met, which means gathering documentation, etc, all of which takes time.”
Er, TallDave. The FISA statue took that need into consideration from the very beginning. It allows the government to wiretap for three straight days before even asking the FISA Court for a retroactive warrant.
By the way, I’m still waiting to hear just what restrictions — if any — you think SHOULD be placed on the president’s ability to wiretap anyone he chooses, for any reason whatsoever.
Darrell
Yeah, and I’m sure Al would be the first to tell you how full of shit you are in asserting that Robertson and all the rest of the FISA Court “explicitly said” that they had no idea about Bush’e executive order
TallDave
The really amusing thing was John S’ fruitcake argument that what the terrorist REALLY want is for us to try to catch them.
LOL I haven’t seen logic that tortured since the Cold War, when Jimmy Carter told us the best way to defeat Communism was to unilaterally disarm.
SeesThroughIt
Pretty much, yeah. It’s funny in a way, but I can’t really laugh at it because ultimately, the joke’s on me as well whether I want it to be or not.
Darrell
“old” ruling kook? Or one that was unanimously overruled by the DC court of appeals waiting for Supreme court hearing now
TallDave
Er, no, that still requires probable cause, it just requires it later. The DOJ filtered out a request to wiretap Moussaoui for that very reason: they couldn’t find probable cause. Instead, we found a smoking crater in Manhattan.
Duh. The restrictions we have now: not for domestic use without a warrant.
Darrell
I don’t believe the President should be allowed to wiretap random US citizens ‘as he chooses’ to gather information to prosecute them without first obtaining a warrant. Isn’t that current law? or did fascist Bush overturn it? I’m sure you ‘knowledgeable’ lefties can clarify that one for us
Perry Como
Civil rights don’t mean much when you’re dead.
CrazyMoonbat
Why can’t you wingnuts respect Al Qaeda’s right to kill Americans? Can’t you see by not letting them kill you, you’re helping them win?
Bruce Moomaw
*sigh* Darrell, read the quote accurately: “The Truong court, as did all the other courts to have decided the issue, held that the President did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information.” So (to repeat the obvious point, stated among others by Will), who decides when the president is conducting such searches just for “intelligence information”, and when he’s doing so for other purposes? The President by himself decides that? The Founders would have had a nasty name for that philosophy. To repeat: you two boys clearly want an absolute dictator in wartime.
And, TallDave, while we’re talking about “the people’s” opinion of your views, let’s take a look at yesterday’s Gallup Poll on the subject: “Which comes closer to your view: the government should take all steps necessary to prevent additional acts of terrorism in the U.S. even if it means your basic civil liberties would be violated, (or) the government should take steps to prevent additional acts of terrorism but not if those steps would violate your basic civil liberties?” The public chooses Number Two by 65-31. Very few people like fruitcake, Dave.
Darrell
FISA found: the President did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information
Moomaw writes:
Uh Bruce, the President did not decide that by “himself” as an “absolute dictator” as you dishonestly suggest. He obtained NSA judicial approval, he notified FISA judges, obtained AG approval, and congressional oversight. All that because, based on the Bush admin’s reasonable non-draconian position, supported by FISA and other judicial opinions, that the law didn’t require them to get warrants if the targets of the surveillance weren’t US citizens.
Bruce Moomaw
(1) Me: “By the way, I’m still waiting to hear just what restrictions—if any—you think SHOULD be placed on the president’s ability to wiretap anyone he chooses, for any reason whatsoever.”
Talldave: “Duh. The restrictions we have now: not for domestic use without a warrant.”
Fine. To repeat, for the millionth time: who decides when it’s “for domestic use” and when it’s “for wartime”? The President by himself?
(2) Me: “Er, TallDave. The FISA statue took that need into consideration from the very beginning. It allows the government to wiretap for three straight days before even asking the FISA Court for a retroactive warrant.”
TallDave: “Er, no, that still requires probable cause, it just requires it later. The DOJ filtered out a request to wiretap Moussaoui for that very reason: they couldn’t find probable cause. Instead, we found a smoking crater in Manhattan.”
Which, of course, was before we were “in wartime”, even by Bush’s definition. So we now learn that you want the President to have sole discretion to decide who to wiretap, and why, even when we’re NOT in wartime. I’m still waiting to see what restrictions you two think SHOULD be placed on the President’s wiretap powers, except for his own conscience — which the Founders, for some strange reason, didn’t consider an adequate safeguard.
TallDave:
PotVsKtl
That’s pretty much the summation of their entire argument. TallDave, Darrell, Perry Como – willfully ignoring facts and abandoning American ideals. Why? They’re frightened.
Darrell
False choice as Bush’s program did not ‘violate basic civil liberties’.
I hope you whackjobs take this issue and run with it. When the details and truth emerge, you’ll be exposed for the lying, hateful scumbags that you are
Darrell
First of all, ‘Perry Como’ is a spoof poster who usually posts under the name DougJ. You’ve been punk’d because you’re not very bright. I hope noble patriots like you, who either praise those who leaked the classified program or who choose to be silent about it, will show us more example of American ideals
Bruce Moomaw
Darrell: “He notified FISA judges, obtained AG approval, and congressional oversight.”
The FISA judges themselves — all of them — told the Post that he did NOT notify them. The eight Congressmen involved said that he did NOT allow any conceivable kind of Congressional oversight, for the obvious reason that they were forbidden to tell any other members of Congress (including the other members of their Intelligence Committees) what was going on, or to ask any legal experts, even hypothetically, about the legality of such a program.
Contgratulations, Darrell: you’ve trumped the Black Knight in Monty Python, who only refused to recognize when his arms and legs had all been cut off. You refuse to recognize that your head has.
Darrell
I’ve produced FISA rulings which directly contradict that. Now YOU show the quotes where the FISA judges say they were completely in the dark over Bush’s executive order. You can’t because you’re lying ass off
Bruce Moomaw
And now, while I’d dearly love to spend the rest of my life cleaning up endlessly after these two morons, I have other things to do — so I recommend that they take up the fight instead with, say, George Will and Lindsay Graham and McCain. (After reading what they said, please.)
jg
Did you know Reagan offered to share SDI with Gorbachev?
So you don’t even want Bush to have to justify it later? Its not just about getting justification its called oversight. We get to see who he’s asking to snoop on. It prevents corruption from occurring. Do you want this kind of power in a Clinton’s hands? To snoop anyone and only tell you who they listened to if it was ationable?
Bruce Moomaw
After reading Darrell’s last comment, let me loosen that last requirement for him, since he’s just proven again that he can’t read.
Perry Como
Why does the Washington Times hate America?
slide
I’m still amazed at the fearfullness of the right wingers on here. So willing to give up their liberties, their freedoms, all in the hopes that their daddy will protect them from the big bad terrorists. I can almost visualize the quiverring TallDave’s and Darrells hiding under their sheets at night.
PotVsKtl
I’m confident there was a substantive “second of all” … right?
John S.
LOL
What is REALLY amusing is TallDave earning the fruitcake moniker. Only someone with a few screws loose could equate the opinion that terrorists want to destroy America from within by creating an environment where Americans themselves destroy what this country used to be with not wanting to catch terrorists.
I didn’t realize Bellevue allowed unrestricted access to the Internet.
Perry Como
I was hoping it was more about NSA judges.
Darrell
John Schmidt, former associate attorney General under Bill Clinton says that the President has the inherent authority to wiretap suspected terrorists for national security reasons. But none of this matters to most on the left. The safety and security of US citizens and troops can be compromised, not out of patriotic concern for the constitution, but because they hate Bush that much.
Pb
You know, TallDave, that must be a scary bubble you live in. Taking you seriously for a second–if there are *really*, say, 10,000 Americans who are actually agents of al-Qaeda, we’re in much more trouble than we thought we were. Heck, given our actions in and justifications for Afghanistan and Iraq, we might as well just give up and declare war on the United States until we smoke ’em all out…
John S.
But then, how would the flypaper theory be applied to the situation? I mean is it even possible to fight ‘them’ here so that we don’t have to fight ‘them’ here?
Forgive my inability to grasp tautological rationalizations in as fine a style as TallDave.
Perry Como
The President has the authority, nay, the duty to do anything to protect this nation. The President can eavesdrop on US citizens; he can detain citizens without charge, indefinitely; he can order extraordinary rendition to foreign countries; he can spy on terroristic groups like vegans and Catholics; he can order suspects to be tortured, although he wouldn’t, because we don’t torture; he can define any person he wants as an enemy combatant, undeserving of legal protections.
The President has always had these powers, but it is more important than ever that he uses them now. We are at war. And this is a different kind of war. This isn’t a war that has battle fronts, or boundaries, or armies, or even a clear concept of what victory entails. This war is against a concept: Terrorism. And until we defeat this concept, as good Americans, we should support our President in whatever he does.
Our country was built on the ideas of unquestionable authority, explicit trust in the government, and fealty to a nation made of men, not laws.
As a great American once said: “None of your civil liberties matter much after you’re dead.”
Pb
John S.,
I suppose it depends on your definition of here. In any case, we’d be fighting them now so we don’t have to fight them later.
John S.
Thanks for the handy segue…Patrick Henry said: “Give me liberty or give me death.”
I guess REAL patriots would rather be dead than give up their liberties.
slide
Give me liberty or give me death ! – Patrick Henry
Do whatever you want to me Mr. President, I’m scared. – the modern right wing
Perry Como
You lefties missed the memo.
Quotes from our Founding Fathers (as edited by a producer from Fox News):
“Force is the vital principle…” — Thomas Jefferson
“Every government…when trusted to the rulers…are…safe depositories” — Thomas Jefferson
“…resistance to government is…wrong” — Thomas Jefferson
“That government is best which governs…” — Thomas Paine
“Laws gentle are seldom obeyed…” — Benjamin Franklin
“Our Constitution is…nothing in this world…but death” — Benjamin Franklin
“A government…of men” — John Adams
“Liberty cannot be preserved…among the people.” — John Adams
“Power must…be trusted without a check” — John Adams
Tim F.
I think this thread looks weightier at an even 200 comments. That is all.
The Disenfranchised Voter
Hmm so I was right yesterday when I said that Clinton’s Executive Order 12949 didn’t apply to American citizens and/or their property?
What’s that bring my total to? Oh right, 1,967 times.
Bruce Moomaw
I’m back (although I notice that TallDave isn’t). As for Darrell, one can at least say that what he lacks in brain matter he makes up for in mindless stubbornness. Go pick on those pinkos Will, Graham, Specter and McCain, Darrell, like I said.
To that Post article reporting the views of the FISA judges, one can now add CBS’ report that at least three of the other 10 judges say that they’re “deeply disturbed” by Bush’s actions. We haven’t heard yet that any of them approves. Isn’t it odd that none of the FISA judges seems to know that their own Appeal Court ruled two years ago that Bush has absolute power in wartime to wiretap whoever he wants without their approval, and that therefore all those warrants they’ve been handing out since then are totally meaningless? Even more curiously, the White House itself hasn’t pointed that out to them, and in fact keeps asking them for more of those meaningless warrants (although, as we now know, it’s also been sneaking behind their backs on a wholesale basis). Could it possibly be that the judges are right and Darrell is wrong, and that that 2002 decision actually DOESN’T give Bush unlimited wiretapping rights? Nah.
Bruce Moomaw
Flash! Notorious pinko Jonah Goldberg agrees with me and George Will on this subject! (See John’s “The Bush Administration As Heroin Addicts” thread above.)
“A conspiracy so vast…”
Paul L.
Wrong Kos, Clinton DID order warrantless searches of Americans
http://macsmind.blogspot.com/2005/12/wrong-kos-clinton-did-order.html
Tim F.
Yes Paul, Clinton correctly pointed out that the law in 1994 had a loophole allowing for warrantless physical searches. Then Congress closed the loophole and Clinton respected the change.
Next.
Paul L.
You make it sound so nice. I do not believe Clinton said to congress “there is this loophole in the law and to protect the public let us close it”. Your statement does not refute “Clinton DID order warrantless searches of Americans” before Congress closed the loophole. So Kos is still wrong.
Links please before I take your word for it. When was the loophole closed?
Here is your Next:
‘Warrantless’ searches not unprecedented
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20051222-122610-7772r.htm
via http://betsyspage.blogspot.com/2005/12/it-turns-out-that-administrations.html
DougJ
You’re right, Paul L. We’re seeing a deliberate whitewashing of Kriminal Klinton’s systematic use of the NSA to spy on his political enemies.
Here’s a good prime on Filegate, the greatest invasion of privacy in modern times.
And speaking of spying, here’s a good piece on the spying Joe Wilson did for the French government.
Paul L.
DougJ
Filegate was the abuse of the FBI not the NSA. You forgot using the IRS too.
Perry Como
We should call for Clinton’s impeachment.