Defiant Bush admits breaking law

[kapkomet]

BTW Flaxx... I wasn't insinuating that you personally are all "gleeful"... sorry to have that appearance.

 

This is a b**** of an issue. I'm more coming at this from a devil's advocate side - I still honestly don't know what to think other then I don't like the thoughts of it, yet, looking for justification.

[FlaSoxxJim]

The Federalist papers cited are indeed interesting and inciteful – almost to the point of being precient in terms of historical evens that have happened since then. But their argument for the need of an unencumbered executive branch that can be agile and expedient in its decision-making in wartime has more application in instances where the executive is nt already given the tools to execute his actions with expediency. The fact that the FISA courts were in place to allow him to do what he wanted to do (but with some minimum levvel of constitutionally mandated oversight) is a critical aspect here and one not forseen by the Foundinng ather authors.

 

And I was under the impression that the constitutional guarantees were not simply about "MY RIGHTS". but the rights of individual American citizens. If the acid test for you becomes whether the rights of 99.999999% of individuals remain intact then the Schiavo case was not one in which you thought here were constitutional issues of importance, nor are cases where individuals act to about a single fetus because that act leaves 99.9999999999999999% of individuals' rights untouched.

 

If you don't see the danger in the failing to be alarmed by assaultts on personal freedoms so long as 99.99999999999% of American's rights are NOT being eroded, then I don't think you really get what the Founding Fathers were all about.

 

For my part, I acknowledge that I would indeed love for this to be the "magical bullet to bring Bush down" (though you areright that I'd hardly call my temperment gleeful). As you have intimated that you wanted to see Clinton impeeched for acts other than what eh was charged with, GWB has abused the office in ways above and beyond the current crisis. Capone was brought down for tax evasion because that was where he slipped up, not because the worst thing he evver did was fail to pay taxes. Saddam Hussein is currently on trial for a ffraction of his crimes because the prosecution tthought this was the bast case to bring forth.

 

And I'm not at all confident that "WE FINALLY GOT THIS ASSHOLE." But I do think this brings us a step closer.

Edited December 23, 2005 by FlaSoxxJim

[FlaSoxxJim]

BTW Flaxx... I wasn't insinuating that you personally are all "gleeful"... sorry to have that appearance. . .

 

de nada

 

I'm more coming at this from a devil's advocate side. . .

 

Well then you certainly picked the right side.

[Rex Kickass]

I personally, don't want to see an impeachment happen. I want my President to work within the generous laws he's to be governed by already.

 

I don't want to see a situation where we have to decide if impeachment is warranted. We're just put there it seems.

[FlaSoxxJim]

It's people like Mr. Tice, with both an intimate understanding of what has been going on and also a patriotic sens of duty duty to uphold his oath to the Constitution, that have forced the admission of the existence of the NSA domestic spying program. It took at least hundreds of people to carry out the program, and now those who have felt powerless to speak out against what they saw as abuse of executive power are now finding their voice.

 

http://news.baou.com/main.php?action=recent&rid=20695

 

Here is the letter by Mr. Tice, sent on Dec 18, 2005, to the Senate & House Intelligence Committee:

 

Dear Chairman Roberts,

 

Under the provisions of the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act (ICWPA), I intend to report to Congress probable unlawful and unconstitutional acts conducted while I was an intelligence officer with the National Security Agency (NSA) and with the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). These acts involve the Director of the National Security Agency, the Deputies Chief of Staff for Air and Space Operations, and the U.S. Secretary of Defense.

 

These probable unlawful and unconstitutional acts were conducted via very highly sensitive intelligence programs and operations known as Special Access Programs (SAP)s. I was a technical intelligence specialist dealing almost exclusively with SAP programs and operations at both NSA and DIA.

 

Due to the highly sensitive nature of these programs and operations, I will require assurances from your committee that the staffers and/or congressional members to participate retain the proper security clearances, and also have the appropriate SAP cleared facilities available for these discussions.

 

Please inform me when you require my appearance on Capitol Hill to conduct these discussions in relation to this ICWPA report.

 

Very Respectfully,

Russell D. Tice

Former Intelligence Officer, NSA

 

Mr. Tice also stated:

"As a Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) officer it is continually drilled into us that the very first law chiseled in the SIGINT equivalent of the Ten Commandments (USSID-18) is that Thou shall not spy on American persons without a court order from FISA. This law is continually drilled into each NSA intelligence officer throughout his or her career. The very people that lead the National Security Agency have violated this holy edict of SIGINT."

 

A pivotal question in this case is whether Americans were being spied on via a vacuum cleaner approach wherein vast amounts of information are sucked in. FISA warrants require a name of the target and would not cover such a mass approach. He also added: "In addition to knowing this fundamental commandment of not violating the civil rights of Americans, intelligence officers are required to take an oath to protect the United States Constitution from enemies both foreign and domestic. It is with my oath as a US intelligence officer weighing heavy on my mind that I wish to report to congress acts that I believe are unlawful and unconstitutional. The freedom of the American people cannot be protected when our constitutional liberties are ignored and our nation has decayed into a police state."

 

Tice specifies that the acts in question involve some big fish, namely the Director of the National Security Agency (Michael Hayden), the Deputies Chief of Staff for Air and Space Operations, and U.S. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld.

 

The linked article also has statements urging Congressional hearings from the thus-far gagged Sibel Edmonds, the director of National Security Whistleblowers Coalition and the former FBI translator who obviously has a thing or two to say about the FBI's 99-11/post 9-11activities if she ever gets the chance. If it becomes apparent that the FBI activities she is privy to are germane to the lead-up to the NSA domestic spying program, she might actually get a chance to testify.

[FlaSoxxJim]

I personally, don't want to see an impeachment happen. I want my President to work within the generous laws he's to be governed by already.

 

I don't want to see a situation where we have to decide if impeachment is warranted. We're just put there it seems.

 

If given the choice, I'd obviously rather have this administration not have put us in this position as well. We have been put in the situation by questionable acts and the legitimacy of those acts needs to be critically examined.

[FlaSoxxJim]

I seem to be chronicaling (sp?) alll of this just for myself, but what the heck.

 

Here's a pdf of a DOJ Office of Legislative Affairs memo released today formalizing their flimsy defense of President Bush’s warrantless domestic spying argument:

 

http://www.nationalreview.com/pdf/12%2022%...SA%20letter.pdf

 

And here is a very concise, incisive critique of that position from Think Progress:

 

The Department of Justice Memo, Debunked

The Department of Justice has released a memo defending President Bush’s warrantless domestic spying argument. There are two main arguments:

 

1) Any limitations FISA places on the President’s authority to issue warrantless domestic searches are unconstitutional, and

 

2) Congress gave the President authority to issue warrantless domestic searches

 

It doesn’t seem like the DOJ has their heart in the first argument. They devote just two paragraphs out of a five page memo to this point. Most of that space is filled by caselaw decided before FISA even became law, making it largely irrelevant since FISA speaks directly to warrantless spying on Americans and declares it illegal.

 

Like other defenders of the President’s program, they place considerable emphasis on a 2002 decision by the FISA Court of Appeals. There are two important things to remember about that case:

 

- The FISA appeals court explicitly says it’s not addressing the issue (”It was incumbent upon the [Truong] court, therefore, to determine the boundaries of that constitutional authority [to conduct warrantless searches]…The question before us is the reverse…”)

 

- The FISA appeals court acknowledges the cases it mentions were decided before FISA and didn’t consider the statute (”We reiterate that Truong dealt with a pre-FISA surveillance…it had no occasion to consider the application of the statute…”)

 

In other words, there is a reason that the DOJ is giving short shrift to this argument. There is little evidence to substantiate it.

 

The rest of the memo is devoted to arguing that the 9/18/01 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) against al-Qaeda authorized the President’s actions. This argument doesn’t hold water either:

 

1. The administration tried to get language inserted into the AUMF that would have authorized them to take actions “in the United States.” They failed. [Tom Daschle, 12/23/05]

 

2. Federal law says that “exclusive means” to conduct electronic surveillance is FISA and Title III (which governs the use of wiretaps by law enforcement). Relying on the AUMF, the administration concedes that neither of those two statutes were used. Federal law says that any surveillance that is not conducted under those two statues is illegal. [18 U.S.C. 2551(2)(f); 50 U.S.C. 1809(a)]

 

3. FISA has a limited exception that allows warrantless domestic wiretaps after a war is declared, but it only lasts 15 days. The Bush administration program has been going on for more than four years. [50 U.S.C. 1811]

 

The Justice Department advances two theories about why Bush’s warrantless domestic surveillance program was legal and both of them fail. The truth is simple: the program was illegal because it violated federal criminal law.

 

EDIT to add: Has anyone else noticed the Assistant Attorney General hand-off? Apparently sensing that Abu G's stammering, sidestepping and self-contradiction wasn't playing well and his political baggage wasn't helping matters either, the last two days it has been the more eloquent Assistant AG William Moschella taking the lead. Just an observation, and something I thought interesting.

Edited December 23, 2005 by FlaSoxxJim

[Balta1701]

US News:

 

In search of a terrorist nuclear bomb, the federal government since 9/11 has run a far-reaching, top secret program to monitor radiation levels at over a hundred Muslim sites in the Washington, D.C., area, including mosques, homes, businesses, and warehouses, plus similar sites in at least five other cities, U.S. News has learned. In numerous cases, the monitoring required investigators to go on to the property under surveillance, although no search warrants or court orders were ever obtained, according to those with knowledge of the program. Some participants were threatened with loss of their jobs when they questioned the legality of the operation, according to these accounts.

 

Federal officials familiar with the program maintain that warrants are unneeded for the kind of radiation sampling the operation entails, but some legal scholars disagree. News of the program comes in the wake of revelations last week that, after 9/11, the Bush White House approved electronic surveillance of U.S. targets by the National Security Agency without court orders. These and other developments suggest that the federal government's domestic spying programs since 9/11 have been far broader than previously thought.

 

The nuclear surveillance program began in early 2002 and has been run by the FBI and the Department of Energy's Nuclear Emergency Support Team (NEST). Two individuals, who declined to be named because the program is highly classified, spoke to U.S. News because of their concerns about the legality of the program. At its peak, they say, the effort involved three vehicles in Washington, D.C., monitoring 120 sites per day, nearly all of them Muslim targets drawn up by the FBI. For some ten months, officials conducted daily monitoring, and they have resumed daily checks during periods of high threat. The program has also operated in at least five other cities when threat levels there have risen: Chicago, Detroit, Las Vegas, New York, and Seattle.

[FlaSoxxJim]

Wow.

 

That probably deserves its own thread.

[southsider2k5]

US News:

 

I'm not quite sure why that would be illegal, except for maybe the part about going onto people's property. The government isn't allowed to monitor radation levels without a warrant? How do they monitor things like pollution, radon, smog etc without warrents???

[FlaSoxxJim]

I'm not quite sure why that would be illegal, except for maybe the part about going onto people's property.  The government isn't allowed to monitor radation levels without a warrant?  How do they monitor things like pollution, radon, smog etc without warrents???

The snooping is directed at private individuals and private property and thus requires a warrant.

 

The courts have determined it is illegal to randomly fly infrared sensors over homes to check for heat patterns that would indicate an indor pot operation. But with probable cause and a warrant they can do it.

 

Same situation here. Racial profiling issues aside, if probable cause had been shown and warrants issued, monitoring these sites would be completely different. It again shows that BushCo does not care to bother with the pesky details that would force them to comply with the law.

Edited December 23, 2005 by FlaSoxxJim

[kapkomet]

I'm not quite sure why that would be illegal, except for maybe the part about going onto people's property.  The government isn't allowed to monitor radation levels without a warrant?  How do they monitor things like pollution, radon, smog etc without warrents???

Because it's the erosion of rights and blatent racism.

[Cknolls]

US News:

What's the problem? If there was a heightened level of radiation at one of these sites, it would be nice to know. I'm sure if you lived in an area showing elevated radiation levels you would want the gov't to investigate.

 

Why don't these pricks that are leaking everything to the media quit if they are so concerned and go public.

 

They will be the first ones to say Bush didn't do enough if something were to happen in this country.

 

Can't have it both ways. Do they work for the ACLU or the intelligence agencies?

[kapkomet]

Seriously, how else do you monitor the "potential activity" of these people?

[FlaSoxxJim]

Because it's the erosion of rights and blatent racism.

Well it is blatant racisim, but let's leave that out of the mix. The Constitution protects against illegal search without cause, and the courts are set up to determine whether probbable cause exists. Bypassing the courts is a Bozo no-no.

[FlaSoxxJim]

What's the problem?  If there was a heightened level of radiation at one of these sites, it would be nice to know. I'm sure if you lived in an area showing elevated radiation levels you would want the gov't to investigate.

 

Sure. After obtaining a warrant.

[Balta1701]

What's the problem?  If there was a heightened level of radiation at one of these sites, it would be nice to know. I'm sure if you lived in an area showing elevated radiation levels you would want the gov't to investigate.

The problem is that it also appears to be in defiance of established law. Once again, the issue would be that the Administration would have decided that they had the right to not follow the law, instead of attempting to actually have a debate or discussion about changing it...if everything is as seemed here. That would be the issue...instead of debating whether or not the law should be changed, it is just ignored.

[NUKE_CLEVELAND]

The snooping is directed at private individuals and private property and thus requires a warrant.

 

The courts have determined it is illegal to randomly fly infrared sensors over homes to check for heat patterns that would indicate an indor pot operation.  But with probable cause and a warrant they can do it. 

 

Same situation here.  Racial profiling issues aside, if probable cause had been shown and warrants issued, monitoring these sites would be completely different.  It again shows that BushCo does not care to bother with the pesky details that would force them to comply with the law.

 

 

Im so sick of hearing about racial profiling. I look at it as common freekin sense. If the people who are committing terrorism are young Middle Eastern males then it makes sense to focus your investigations on them. Same goes for Young Black Males and random acts of criminality. Im sorry if it looks bad but thats just facts of life.

[NorthSideSox72]

Im so sick of hearing about racial profiling.  I look at it as common freekin sense.  If the people who are committing terrorism are young Middle Eastern males then it makes sense to focus your investigations on them.  Same goes for Young Black Males and random acts of criminality.  Im sorry if it looks bad but thats just facts of life.

 

Investigations should center not on categories, but suspects and evidence.

 

I have an idea. How about I start pulling over cars to check for DUIs only if they have USMC stickers on the back window? 'Cause, you know, all those military brats are wont to drink and drive when they are off base.

 

Sound good to you?

 

:headshake

[kapkomet]

I need to add one oher critical point that would, in a rational universe, bring the war-making authority argument crasing down around Bush's ears.  Today's (Friday - damn it's late) WaPo has an important piece in which Daschle reveals that Bush requested AND WAS DENIED by Congress war-making authority "in the United States" immediately after 9-11.

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...5122202119.html

 

So if Congress refused to explicitly to grant such authority even as they were drafting the 9/18 use of force authorization, how can BushCo. logically argue such authority is implicit in that resolution?

 

This is critically important, especilly for Kap and anybody else who still contends that Bush thought what he was asking NSA to do was implicitly authorized:

We know what Bush wanted to be able to do and we know that he went ahead and did it.  Now we know that there was no misunderstanding as to what autthority Congress had granted, because they flatly denied him wartime authority in the US in the same session 9/18 session in which the Afghan resolution was passed.

 

How much more spelled out does this need to be?  Bush asked for this specific power and was denied this by Congress – which is the ONLY PLACE such authorization can come from.  He then knowingly went ahead and approved the NSA surveilances without FISA warrants and in excess of the authority specifically granted by Congress.

Where in the Constitution does Congress grant this authority? Go back to Federalist 70 on this line of thinking. Congress can REGULATE war but cannot LEAD it. Furthermore, where does a statute supercede the Constitution itself? Bush *may* (I don't believe Daschle here - because otherwise this would have come out LONG ago) have asked for authority, but didn't NEED authority according to the Constitution itself.

[NUKE_CLEVELAND]

Investigations should center not on categories, but suspects and evidence.

 

I have an idea.  How about I start pulling over cars to check for DUIs only if they have USMC stickers on the back window?  'Cause, you know, all those military brats are wont to drink and drive when they are off base.

 

Sound good to you?

 

:headshake

 

 

You jest but your example is already in practice. Go to any military town's local watering hole about 2 AM and see the coppers hanging around waiting to nail drunk soldiers stumbling to their cars. You just proved my point.

[FlaSoxxJim]

Where in the Constitution does Congress grant this authority?  Go back to Federalist 70 on this line of thinking.  Congress can REGULATE war but cannot LEAD it.  Furthermore, where does a statute supercede the Constitution itself?  Bush *may* (I don't believe Daschle here - because otherwise this would have come out LONG ago) have asked for authority, but didn't NEED authority according to the Constitution itself.

Yes, Congress regulates and the executive directs it.

 

I don't know that the sessions leading upp to the 9/11 force resolution are classified or anything, but the procedings were obviously common knowledge to the joint Congress. So I'm not sure I follow the logic of Daschle's criticism coming out long ago. It is only now that the domestic spying issue has come to light, only now where the White House and DOJ are trying to say that the authority to request the wiretaps is implicit in the 9/18 resolution, and therefore ONLY NOW is it relevant that Daschle inform the debate by pointing out that the power explicitly asked for by the President was denied by Congress (ergo, the suggestion that such authorization is implicit in the resolution approved in that same session is erroneous)..

[kapkomet]

Yes, Congress regulates and the executive directs it.

 

I don't know that the sessions leading upp to the 9/11 force resolution are classified or anything, but the procedings were obviously common knowledge to the joint Congress.  So I'm not sure I follow the logic of Daschle's criticism coming out long ago.  It is only now that the domestic spying issue has come to light, only now where the White House and DOJ are trying to say that the authority to request the wiretaps is implicit in the 9/18 resolution, and therefore ONLY NOW is it relevant that Daschle inform the debate by pointing out that the power explicitly asked for by the President was denied by Congress (ergo, the suggestion that such authorization is implicit in the resolution approved in that same session is erroneous)..

Or, he asked for authority to "reach out" and was denied, and did it anyway because he had the authority to do so anyway.

 

Again... I'm not saying this is "right"... just trying to throw some holes in the blanket "it's 100% wrong" camp.

[FlaSoxxJim]

Im so sick of hearing about racial profiling. . .

 

And that is why I chose to table the profiling issue in this particular debate, which focuses on whethher the surveilances were legal and constitutional.

[BigSqwert]

Im so sick of hearing about racial profiling.  I look at it as common freekin sense.  If the people who are committing terrorism are young Middle Eastern males then it makes sense to focus your investigations on them.  Same goes for Young Black Males and random acts of criminality.  Im sorry if it looks bad but thats just facts of life.

 

I wonder how gung ho you would be if instead of Middle Eastern American males they were targeting the males of you or your family's ethinicity. Might not be as dissmissive and apologetic about wire taps and the like.

Edited December 24, 2005 by BigSqwert