RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events Bush does the (wire)tap dance

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wannabuyamonkey said:

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So your saying Bush is more important than the Constitution?

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No I'm not saying that. I'm saying it wasn't unconstitutional. Just like you guys didn't seem to have any constitutional issues with unwarrented wire taps from Clinton or Carter (when BTW, we weren't even at war).

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Judges on Surveillance Court To Be Briefed on Spy Program
By Carol D. Leonnig and Dafna Linzer
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, December 22, 2005; A01
The presiding judge of a secret court that oversees government surveillance in espionage and terrorism cases is arranging a classified briefing for her fellow judges to address their concerns about the legality of President Bush's domestic spying program, according to several intelligence and government sources.

Several members of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court said in interviews that they want to know why the administration believed secretly listening in on telephone calls and reading e-mails of U.S. citizens without court authorization was legal. Some of the judges said they are particularly concerned that information gleaned from the president's eavesdropping program may have been improperly used to gain authorized wiretaps from their court.
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Matter-eater Man said:

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wannabuyamonkey said:

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So your saying Bush is more important than the Constitution?

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No I'm not saying that. I'm saying it wasn't unconstitutional. Just like you guys didn't seem to have any constitutional issues with unwarrented wire taps from Clinton or Carter (when BTW, we weren't even at war).

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Well I'll stick with the bipartisan members of congress who doubt it is constitutional. And there is a reason Bush & gang haven't been citing Clinton/Carter, it's not true. Believe it or not, Drudge isn't always accurate.

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wannabuyamonkey said:
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Yea, you get one or two Republicans and all of a sudden it's "bi-partisan". ...

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wannabuyamonkey said:
... Or were you refering to the support saddam gave your position in court today?

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Matter-eater Man said:

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wannabuyamonkey said:
... Or were you refering to the support saddam gave your position in court today?

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What you mean he's against a leader wiretapping his own people without a warrant? I would have guessed he would be with you on that one.

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wannabuyamonkey said:
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I'm currious, you have such a strong opinion on this I can only assume you're well versed on teh subject. I seem to have forggotten the criteria that was used to select teh wire taps, could you please remind me.

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President Bush's post- 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. . . .

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."

A Federal appeals court has ruled that the National Security Agency may lawfully intercept messages between United States citizens and people overseas, even if there is no cause to believe the Americans are foreign agents, and then provide summaries of these messages to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

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the G-man said:
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This is looking increasingly like another effort by hostile journalists to gin up a fake scandal and discredit the administration. And once again, Democrats are falling for it.

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Ex-Clinton official Schmidt's defense of warrantless wiretaps, cited by York and Angle, rife with inaccuracy, empty arguments, and unwarranted credulity
Summary: In a Chicago Tribune op-ed, John Schmidt, former associate attorney general under President Clinton, argued that President Bush's decision to authorize warrantless domestic surveillance "is consistent with court decisions and with the positions of the Justice Department under prior presidents." However, Schmidt falsely claimed that Jamie Gorelick, as deputy attorney general under Clinton, testified that the president has the authority to "go beyond" the terms of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Schmidt also offered a number of empty and irrelevant arguments in defense of Bush.
In a December 21 Chicago Tribune op-ed, John Schmidt, former associate attorney general under President Clinton, argued that President Bush's decision to authorize domestic surveillance without pursuing court orders "is consistent with court decisions and with the positions of the Justice Department under prior presidents." In defense of his argument, however, Schmidt falsely claimed that Jamie Gorelick, as deputy attorney general under Clinton, testified that the president has the authority to "go beyond" the terms of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Schmidt also offered a number of empty and irrelevant arguments in defense of Bush.
Scmidt's op-ed has been cited by various media conservatives as a defense of Bush's actions. National Review White House correspondent Byron York excerpted Schmidt's op-ed in a December 21 entry on National Review Online's weblog, The Corner, titled "READ THIS IMPORTANT ARTICLE." On the December 21 edition of Fox News' Special Report with Brit Hume, Fox News chief Washington correspondent Jim Angle reported: "But yet another former official in the Clinton Justice Department wrote in the Chicago Tribune today that President Bush's actions are consistent with a number of court decisions as well as the position of the Justice Department under several prior presidents."
After The New York Times reported on December 16 that Bush authorized the National Security Agency to "eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying," Bush publicly acknowledged the existence of the warrantless surveillance program and the fact that he had reauthorized it more than 30 times since 2001.
Schmidt's claim about Gorelick testimony is false
FISA, passed in 1978, requires that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court authorize any domestic surveillance. In his Tribune op-ed, Schmidt wrote: "Every president since FISA's passage has asserted that he retained inherent power to go beyond the act's terms." As evidence, he quoted Gorelick's 1994 testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, in which she said: "[T]he Department of Justice believes, and the case law supports, that the president has the inherent authority to conduct warrantless physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes." But as Media Matters for America noted, physical searches were not governed by FISA at the time Gorelick made that statement. So her argument was not that the president could go beyond FISA, as Schmidt wrote, but that FISA did not then apply to physical searches. FISA was amended in 1995 to encompass physical searches. Moreover, Gorelick at the time stated her support for legislation requiring FISA warrants for physical searches....

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the G-man said:
With all due respect, MEM, when you attempt to discredit a legal analysis made by an attorney, and a Democratic one, by posting an excerpt from a partisan website, all you're doing is driving home my point...

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Matter-eater Man said:
So you can't rebut the points they make?

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Matter-eater Man said:
For those that are for the President being able to wiretap without a judge, will you keep the same position if say Hillary Clinton became President in 2008?

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Matter-eater Man said:

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wannabuyamonkey said:
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I'm currious, you have such a strong opinion on this I can only assume you're well versed on teh subject. I seem to have forggotten the criteria that was used to select teh wire taps, could you please remind me.

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From your post's I took it that you too have a strong opinion yourself. And you should, everybody should. We're talking about a fundamental shift in power for our elected leader that won't end after this President's final term is over. For the government to listen in on American citizens a judge was required. If there was no time to get one the government could start one & get a judge to OK it later. Last year Bush even stated that they still needed to do that for wiretaps. Obviously that wasn't true. As it stands now he's wiretapping without a judge involved at all & informed a couple members of congress that this was being done. Those that he told couldn't do anything about it one way or the other because of secrecy rules. There is no oversight beyond what the White House decides to give on this wiretapping. If this is left "as is" eventually a President is going to abuse that power. Congress needs to fix this, so that what needs to be done gets done but in a way that doesn't cut off the other branches of government. I'm not looking for them to impeach Bush but just to set things right.

So what is your take on all this?

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I seem to have forggotten the criteria that was used to select teh wire taps, could you please remind me.

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...teh US government as taken radiation samples from places NEAR (not in) mosques and buisinesses and homes suspected of having terrorist ties to make sure they don't have nukes stashed. Alot of the same civil libertarians are saying this is a violation of civil liberties. I didn't realise the right to house nukes was a civil liberty.
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...Let me ask you, does the fact that THIS information was leaked to the press make your blood boil? Are you as much or more angered by the fact that information has been leaked that will endanget the goernments ability to know if there are terrorists with nuclear suitcases hiding out as you were that a desk jocky from the CIA whome everyone in the press allready knew was an agent had her name leaked?

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...For all your side's postring and sermons about slippery slopes, thier true motivations are exposed here. We are on a slippery slope, but it isn't that the Government is taking away people's civil liberties it's that the left is, for political advancement, hindering the governments ability to protect teh civil liberties of it's citicens, not least among those is life it's self.

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...Daschle said the White House sought, but failed, to have included in the resolution language that would have given the president war powers within the United States. He said he refused "to accede to the extraordinary request for additional authority."

"Literally minutes before the Senate cast its vote, the administration sought to add the words 'in the United States and' after 'appropriate force' in the agreed-upon text."

"This last-minute change would have given the president broad authority to exercise expansive powers not just overseas -- where we all understood he wanted authority to act -- but right here in the United States, potentially against American citizens," Daschle wrote.

"If the stories in the media over the past week are accurate, the president has exercised authority that I do not believe is granted to him in the Constitution, and that I know is not granted to him in the law that I helped negotiate with his counsel and that Congress approved in the days after September 11," Daschle wrote.
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"This last-minute change would have given the president broad authority to exercise expansive powers not just overseas -- where we all understood he wanted authority to act -- but right here in the United States, potentially against American citizens," Daschle wrote.

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the G-man said:
The Democratic leadership has to be the worst historical revisionist still received by polite society. Either that or they have been truly clueless about the nature of the war on Islamofascist terror since its start.

Daschle actually makes a case for both in his essay.

Perhaps Daschle didn't notice, but the entire reason that Congress passed the war resolution was that the United States got attacked--inside the United States. It's as if that context never occurs to Daschle.
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Matter-eater Man said:
That would have been a majority only by one seat though if I remember correctly. Almost 50/50.

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - The volume of information gathered from telephone and Internet communications by the National Security Agency without court-approved warrants was much larger than the White House has acknowledged, The New York Times reported on Saturday.

Citing current and former government officials, the Times said the information was collected by tapping directly into some of the U.S. telecommunication system's main arteries. The officials said the NSA won the cooperation of telecommunications companies to obtain access to both domestic and international communications without first gaining warrants.
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I'm going to guess that the motivation between this NSA leak was more altrulistic

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wannabuyamonkey said:

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I'm going to guess that the motivation between this NSA leak was more altrulistic

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I forget, the only bad leaks are those that DON'T compromise national security.

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Uhm I did say I was just guessing & that I was interested in it being investigated. I've noticed some of you like to edit out whatever interferes with your putting words into my mouth. But I forget that Dem bashing is more important than the constitution & terrorism.

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the G-man said:
Actually, MEM...if I'm reading you correctly you want the LEAK investigated in the Plame case, which didn't compromise national security, but want the Bush administration investigated in the other cases.

So you're not really being consistent, except insofar as your consistently anti-Bush.

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Unlike you I'm interested in both cases being investigated.

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I think your reading what you want to read into it but just to be clear, I meant that I wanted both leaks to be investigated. That would include finding the leaker or leakers.

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wannabuyamonkey said:
I think you're being very disingenuos everytime you say there is bi-partisan support. Yes. while 99% of Dems want to investigate teh President (not the leaker *coughrockerfellercough*) and 2% of Republicans do that would technically there IS representation from both parties possibly making the term bi-partisan technically accurate.

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... Try to be intellectually honest otherwise this conversation will consist of nothing by competeing spin....

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I've always tried to be intellectually honest, otherwise what is the point? Why would you even want to do "competeing spin" if presumably truth & merit are on your side?

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the G-man said:
WBAM makes a good point, MEM.

You keep saying "bipartisan" as if the fact that a handful of republicans are joining the democratic chorus is the same as widespread republican support for your position.

Using that logic, because Joe Lieberman, a Democrat, supports Bush on the war, one could as easily say Bush has "bipartisan" support in congress.

Of course, that would be deceptive. Just as deceptive as your statement.

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Matter-eater Man said:

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wannabuyamonkey said:
I think you're being very disingenuos everytime you say there is bi-partisan support. Yes. while 99% of Dems want to investigate teh President (not the leaker *coughrockerfellercough*) and 2% of Republicans do that would technically there IS representation from both parties possibly making the term bi-partisan technically accurate.

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Where do you get your 99%Dems & 2%Republicans figure? You wouldn't be just making up numbers while accusing me of being disingenuos...would you? And there is no "possibly making the term bi-partisan technically accurate" the dictionary is on my side buddy. Here is what comes up via google:
* A term used to refer to an effort endorsed by both political parties or a group composed of members of both political parties. And WBAM I keep bringing up the point that there is bipartisan concern over the President's wiretapping powers in response to you guys continually ignoring those Republicans in your posts. Your not even technically correct addressing this as only a democratic partisan thing.

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... Try to be intellectually honest otherwise this conversation will consist of nothing by competeing spin....

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I've always tried to be intellectually honest, otherwise what is the point? Why would you even want to do "competeing spin" if presumably truth & merit are on your side?

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Top 12 media myths and falsehoods on the Bush administration's spying scandal
Summary: Media Matters presents the top 12 myths and falsehoods promoted by the media on President Bush's spying scandal stemming from the recent revelation in The New York Times that he authorized the National Security Agency (NSA) to eavesdrop on domestic communications without the required approval of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court.
As The New York Times first revealed on December 16, President Bush issued a secret presidential order shortly after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that authorized the National Security Agency (NSA) to eavesdrop on international phone and email communications that originate from or are received within the United States, and to do so without the court approval normally required under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Facing increasing scrutiny, the Bush administration and its conservative allies in the media have defended the secret spying operation with false and misleading claims that have subsequently been reported without challenge across the media. So, just in time for the holidays, Media Matters for America presents the top myths and falsehoods promoted by the media on the Bush administration's spying scandal.
1: Timeliness necessitated bypassing the FISA court
Various media outlets have uncritically relayed President Bush's claim that the administration's warrantless domestic surveillance is justified because "we must be able to act fast ... so we can prevent new [terrorist] attacks." But these reports have ignored emergency provisions in the current law governing such surveillance -- FISA -- that allow the administration to apply to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for a search warrant up to 72 hours after the government begins monitoring suspects' phone conversations. The existence of this 72-hour window debunks the argument that the administration had to bypass the law to avoid delay in obtaining a warrant. The fact that the administration never retroactively sought a warrant from the FISA court for its surveillance activities suggests that it was not the need to act quickly that prevented the administration from complying with the FISA statute, but, rather, the fear of being denied the warrant.
2: Congress was adequately informed of -- and approved -- the administration's actions
Conservatives have sought to defend the secret spying operation by falsely suggesting that the Bush administration adequately informed Congress of its actions and that Congress raised no objections. For example, on the December 19 broadcast of Westwood One's The Radio Factor, host Bill O'Reilly claimed that the NSA's domestic surveillance "wasn't a secret program" because "the Bush administration did keep key congressional people informed they were doing this." The claim was also featured in a December 21 press release by the Republican National Committee (RNC).
In fact, both Republicans and Democrats in Congress have said that the administration likely did not inform them of the operation to the extent required by the National Security Act of 1947, as amended in 2001. Members of both parties have also said that the objections they did have were ignored by the administration and couldn't be aired because the program's existence was highly classified.
As The New York Times reported on December 21, Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-MI), former Sen. Bob Graham (D-FL), Senate Intelligence Committee ranking member John D. Rockefeller IV (D-WV), and Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) have stated that they did not receive written reports from the White House on the surveillance operation, as required by the National Security Act:
The demand for written reports was added to the National Security Act of 1947 by Congress in 2001, as part of an effort to compel the executive branch to provide more specificity and clarity in its briefings about continuing activities. President Bush signed the measure into law on Dec. 28, 2001, but only after raising an objection to the new provision, with the stipulation that he would interpret it "in a manner consistent with the president's constitutional authority" to withhold information for national-security or foreign-policy reasons.
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n interviews, Mr. Hoekstra, Mr. Graham and aides to Mr. Rockefeller and Mr. Reid all said they understood that while the briefings provided by [Vice President Dick] Cheney might have been accompanied by charts, they did not constitute written reports. The 2001 addition to the law requires that such reports always be in written form, and include a concise statement of facts and explanation of an activity's significance.
Further, Rockefeller recently released a copy of a letter he wrote to Cheney on July 17, 2003, raising objections to the secret surveillance operation. As the Times reported on December 20, Rockefeller said on December 19 that his concerns "were never addressed, and I was prohibited from sharing my views with my colleagues" because the briefings were classified. The December 21 Times report noted that House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said she too sent a letter to the Bush administration objecting to the secret surveillance operation, and that Graham alleged that he was never informed "that the program would involve eavesdropping on American citizens."

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