Reidblog [The Reid Report blog]

Keep in mind that while the Carter administration asked Congress to enact the FISA statute in 1978, Attorney General Griffin Bell emphasized that the law "does not take away the power of the president under the Constitution." And in 1994, when the Clinton administration invited Congress to expand FISA to cover physical as well as electronic searches, the associate attorney general testified: "Our seeking legislation in no way should suggest that we do not believe we have inherent authority" under the Constitution. "We do," she concluded.

Of course, there are inconvenient facts which should, by now, be known to all, but since we're dealing with a country populated by approximately 40 percent mindless Bush-bots, here it is in black and white, courtesy of no less a liberal stooge than Mrs. Alan Greenspan, first in a pre-Christmas conversation with "go ahead and tap myphone!" Bush stooge Sen. George Allen:

ALLEN: Well, generally speaking, it is much better. I agree with you that it makes more sense if it is practicable to have independent judicial review, do the FISA courts. However, the president needs to have flexibility.

The law, his constitutional rights and duties and responsibilities, allow him to do so. President Bush is not the first president to do this. His predecessor, President Clinton, did. President Carter did.

And if one wants to look at various cases, like the United States versus Trong, had to do with—it was a 1980 case, during the Jimmy Carter administration, where they don‘t have time to be going through all this paperwork.

And the number of hours or days that it may take to get that warrant means that that information is not gleaned, the information is not acquired, and maybe we don‘t corral some of these terrorists as quickly as we could or it‘s a complete missed opportunity .

MITCHELL: Let me just clear the record up, Senator, because we‘ve checked today, with both the Carter and the Clinton White Houses, and every lawyer that we‘ve spoken to says that they did not do this.

They did not do what this administration has now conceded and, in fact, claims credit for doing, which is to use the National Security Agency to spy on Americans, to spy on people making calls to and from the United States without a court warrant.

ALLEN: Well, I‘ve actually—well, the documents I saw that President Clinton actually authorized the attorney general, then Janet Reno, and certain key people to give the authority for such warrantless eavesdropping ...

MITCHELL: For the FBI, but not for the NSA is my understanding.

ALLEN: Well, right, for the FBI, OK.

MITCHELL: I think the big difference is that it‘s this super secret spy agency that many people are suggestions doesn‘t have any controls over it other than this intelligence court.

Well, let me take you beyond that, because the intelligence court itself has had one resignation, admittedly a Democrat. A Clinton-era appointee has resigned from this 11-person court and we talked—NBC News talked to another member, not a Democrat, and he says that he has some concerns—not deep concerns but some concerns—of the other remaining 10 judges are going to meet within the next two weeks. So people involved in this are concerned about the president.

ALLEN: I think it‘s completely legitimate to be concerned, but people also need to understand the law, the responsibilities and in fact, the constitutional authority of the president of the United States. If they don‘t like it, I suppose they can propose amendments to the Constitution.

But the president is trying to—in this effort, trying to identify terrorist threats, determine those threats, and then act. And one of the ways you have to do it is to try to intercept some of these calls.

They get all sorts of information off of laptops, off of different means about these terrorists and al Qaeda in particular, and they need to act on it. And no one‘s actually been harmed by this. This is not as if somebody is being detained or they‘re ...

MITCHELL: Well, how would we know?

ALLEN: Well, they‘re not being ...

MITCHELL: We actually don‘t know whether anyone‘s been harmed.

ALLEN: Well, being detained is a different thing. No one‘s talking about suspending the writ of habeas corpus, which has been done by presidents in time of war in previous years in our history of our country.

MITCHELL: But the point is that we don‘t know whose privacy has been invaded nor what records are being kept. So there‘s no way to know what‘s out there. You wouldn‘t know if your phone calls were intercepted.

ALLEN: That‘s true. That‘s true. And it‘s one of those risks or one of those judgment calls we have to make that is it worth it to allow the president and our intelligence agencies, our national security agencies, allow them the flexibility ... especially the way communications are now, whether it‘s the Internet or cell phones that move around all over the country and all over the world, do we want them to have that ability to act quickly, flexibly to protect America from terrorist threats? I‘m willing to take that risk.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MITCHELL: Welcome back. We‘ll be talking to Senator Joe Biden about the domestic surveillance program and Iraq in a moment. Today, Republicans accused Democrats of playing politics with the White House spy story. The RNC sent out this press release saying, quote, “Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter both authorized search/surveillance without court orders.”

The RNC press release goes on to cite an executive order from President Clinton on February 9th, 1995 that says, “The attorney general is authorized to approve physical searches without a court order.”

But that actually leaves out a crucial part of the sentence. So let‘s clean that up. The actual executive order from President Clinton reads, “The attorney general is authorized to approve physical searches without a court order if the attorney general makes the certifications required by that section.”

And that section refers to a requirement that the attorney general certify that the search will not involve quote, “The premises, information, material, or property of a United States person.”

In other words, U.S. citizens or anyone inside the United States. It‘s the same story about how the RNC is framing former president Jimmy Carter‘s executive order, which is taking it out of context.

OK on domestic spying leaves Bush on thin ice even with right-wing radicals
Tuesday, December 27, 2005 If our government had checks and balances without all of the governmental branches belonging to only one political party, the impeachment process would have already begun.

Even without this balance, this administration is going down the spiral to political suicide just as fast as it can make decisions.

Finally it bit the one bullet that will explode in its face. Even partisan politics cannot cover up a president’s running a covert intelligence operation that violates our Constitution. This president doesn’t have a clue he is treading on the one sheet of thin ice even right-wing radicals will abandon him on.

Mr. Bush — since he is not acting like our president, he should not be addressed as such — has thrown down the gauntlet, stating he has every right to bypass a court set up specifically to deal with terrorist activities. Mr. Bush cannot use the excuse of expediency, as this court even allowed wiretaps without permission with a 72-hour window before the court was notified to set wiretaps. What more could one want? How easy would it be? Evidently not easy enough for this power-grabbing bunch.

Now Mr. Bush says he is doing these illegal wiretaps to “protect the people.” Not one president was ever sworn in to office to “protect the people.” When you are sworn in as president, the oath you swear is to protect the Constitution — something Mr. Bush must hate, with the blatant disregard he has shown it.

Henry Pabian, Plain Township