# Clinton and Aldrich Ames **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 28, 2005, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-and-aldrich-ames/337396 "2005-12-28T03:23:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2005, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-and-aldrich-ames/337396/1 "2005-12-28T03:23:07Z")
As every President before him has, since the inception of Fisa, Bill Clinton asserted through his actions that Fisa did not apply to the President’s Constitutional mandate to protect the Union. Without warrants and without the approval of Fisa court he authorized wiretaps against Aldrich Ames who was later shown to be a spy. I for one, applaud Clinton’s efforts. Clearly, the court system cannot usurp the Commander in Chief’s mandate to safeguard the union against all enemies foreign and domestic. The President does not have to go to Fisa. There is no need for him to seek the approval of a lesser athority in the matter of national security no matter how strongly deplorable liberal hypocrisy may otherwise assert. …or so I heard on conservative talk radio today. In fact, it sounds pretty good to me at the moment. Perhaps though it is not, and the Aldrich Ames situation is very different from Bush’s current situation. If it is wrong, please explain to me why it is so in a reasonable fashion without hyperbole and venom or any other form of rhetorical flatulence. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2005, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-and-aldrich-ames/337396/2 "2005-12-28T03:43:40Z")
Singularly interesting, and potentially quite compelling an argument. Let’s try this: 1. Are the allegations regarding Clinton’s action re A. Ames valid? I’m not doubting _your_ word, **Scylla** , but I’ve noted that some conservative pundit-wannabes are not above “revising” the truth to suit their argument. (Probably true for some liberals as well, but not germane to the discussion.) 2. Is there a separate act governing investigations of espionage that would authorize the alleged Clinton act? 3. If the answer to 2 is yes, why or why not would that be applicable to the Bush wiretaps? I’m thinking “probable cause” vs. “fishing expedition” in this, as well as differing circumstances governing the two wiretapping episodes. I’d love to see this one resolved without left vs. right rhetoric. I can see possible conditions in which both Presidents were right, either was right but the other wrong, and both wrong. And it’d be interesting from the purely legal standpoint to find out what the facts and the law are and how they differ. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2005, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-and-aldrich-ames/337396/3 "2005-12-28T03:51:29Z")
Poly: Here’s a good Clinton era article on Ames: [http://mediafilter.org/caq/Caq53.court.html](http://mediafilter.org/caq/Caq53.court.html) Wherein Gorelick argues after the fact that the Pres has the authority. ---
**Author:** ![DMC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dmc/32/18049_2.png) [@DMC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMC)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2005, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-and-aldrich-ames/337396/4 "2005-12-28T03:59:01Z")
> [@Scylla](#): > > Wherein Gorelick argues after the fact that the Pres has the authority. Gorelick seems to be arguing about physical searches, not wiretaps. Care to point out where he argues a position on the electronic surveillance issue, so I don’t have to reread it again? ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2005, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-and-aldrich-ames/337396/5 "2005-12-28T04:04:12Z")
> [@DMC](#): > > Gorelick seems to be arguing about physical searches, not wiretaps. Care to point out where he argues a position on the electronic surveillance issue, so I don’t have to reread it again? I hadn’t considered that. Is there a substantive legal difference between a physical search and a wiretap? It seems to me, if anything, a wiretap is less invasive than making a key to somebody’s house, so that if if this were to apply to physical searches it would certainly apply to less invasive wiretaps. I would also assume that Ames was wiretapped at the same time. I think I heard that even if the cite doesn’t explicitly say so. Hopefully that’s not a bad assumption. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2005, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-and-aldrich-ames/337396/6 "2005-12-28T04:06:20Z")
[Nipping this latest tu in the quoque:](http://mediamatters.org/items/200512220011) > [@](#): > > When Gorelick testified before the House Intelligence Committee in 1994 that the president had the “inherent authority to conduct warrantless physical searches,” FISA did not apply to physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes, as Media Matters for America has noted. A year later, Congress – with Clinton’s support – amended FISA to require court orders for physical searches. The Clinton administration thereafter never argued that any “inherent authority” pre-empted the new warrant requirements for physical searches under FISA. > > The Bush administration, on the other hand, has argued that it had the authority to authorize the National Security Agency (NSA) to eavesdrop on domestic communications without warrants, despite FISA’s clear restrictions on warrantless electronic eavesdropping. > > Toensing’s use of the Aldrich Ames case is similarly misleading. The joint CIA/FBI investigation of Ames, a CIA analyst ultimately convicted of espionage, also took place prior to the 1995 FISA amendment requiring warrants for physical searches. Therefore, when the Clinton administration ordered investigators to go “into Aldrich Ames’s house without a warrant,” they did not – as Toensing argued – “carry out their authority” to bypass the FISA requirements, because FISA did not cover such searches. > > At the time of the Ames investigation, FISA did require warrants for wiretaps – as it does now – and there is ample evidence that the Clinton administration complied with those requirements. Moral: Don’t believe anything you hear on talk radio at face value. ---
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2005, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-and-aldrich-ames/337396/7 "2005-12-28T04:08:31Z")
I read that article to be against the expansion of FISA not Clinton going outside of the law to authorize wiretaps. I request a better cite showing where he went outside of the law to authorize surviellence. ---
**Author:** ![Hamlet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hamlet/32/2818_2.png) [@Hamlet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamlet)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2005, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-and-aldrich-ames/337396/8 "2005-12-28T04:10:41Z")
> [@Scylla](#): > > Without warrants and without the approval of Fisa court he authorized wiretaps against Aldrich Ames who was later shown to be a spy. Cite? I haven’t done much research, but most of what I found in my couple minutes spent indicated that the search of Ames work and residence was done pursuant to warrants. [Cite](http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1994_rpt/ssci_ames.htm) > [@From Cite](#): > > The facts contained in the affidavit supporting the arrest and search warrants were summarized by representatives of the FBI. > > … > > and > > This effort led the FBI to begin an intensive investigation of Ames. Under applicable Attorney General guidelines, this meant that the FBI was able to seek authority under pertinent laws and Justice Department guidelines to employ a full array of investigative techniques against Ames. For instance, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court issued orders authorizing electronic surveillance of Ames’s office and residence. Other surveillance techniques used against Ames included mail cover (i.e., deriving information from envelopes addressed to and from Ames), and a clandestine monitor installed in his car to track his movements. Finally, I point you to [this article](http://thinkprogress.org/2005/12/22/myths-as-news/) which discusses the “but Clinton did it too!” argument about Bush’s surveillance. [quote=Scylla] Clearly, the court system cannot usurp the Commander in Chief’s mandate to safeguard the union against all enemies foreign and domestic.In your mind, does this “mandate to safeguard” trump all other acts of Congress or the Constitution itself? > [@Scylla](#): > > The President does not have to go to Fisa. There is no need for him to seek the approval of a lesser athority in the matter of national security no matter how strongly deplorable liberal hypocrisy may otherwise assert. Cute that you refer to a co-equal branch of government as “lesser authority”. The Constitution never provided the President the ability to whatever he wished as long as it fit under the “national security” umbrella. ---
**Author:** ![lonesome\_loser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c68b51/32.png) [@lonesome\_loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lonesome_loser)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2005, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-and-aldrich-ames/337396/9 "2005-12-28T04:11:52Z")
Maybe I’m not reading this right but wasn’t the Ames fiasco aimed at one particular person? A person with cause? It did not give carte blanch to intercept any communication it, or it’s overlords, deemed necessary. Or am I wrong. One person vs anyone? ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2005, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-and-aldrich-ames/337396/10 "2005-12-28T04:17:07Z")
Interesting cite, Elvis, interestingly worded. > [@](#): > > A year later, Congress – with Clinton’s support – amended FISA to require court orders for physical searches. The Clinton administration thereafter never argued that any “inherent authority” pre-empted the new warrant requirements for physical searches under FISA. This is not to say that they would not have had the situation come up, nor that they would need to, since they had previously made the argument. Does Gorelick’s original stance still stand, or is is superseded by the Fisa amendment? If as Gorelick argues the President has the “inherent athority to conduct warrantless searches” than an amendment of Fisa would not apply to this inherent athority. Or would it? I honestly don’t know. ---
**Author:** ![lonesome\_loser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c68b51/32.png) [@lonesome\_loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lonesome_loser)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2005, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-and-aldrich-ames/337396/11 "2005-12-28T04:19:06Z")
[http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20051226-122526-7310r](http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20051226-122526-7310r) ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2005, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-and-aldrich-ames/337396/12 "2005-12-28T04:21:04Z")
Elvis: In thinking about it more, I think you’ve found the pivot on this issue. Does the amended Fisa supersede the President’s “inherent athority,” or not? I’ll need to read the actual Fisa ammendment. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2005, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-and-aldrich-ames/337396/13 "2005-12-28T04:27:55Z")
> [@lonesome loser](#): > > [http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20051226-122526-7310r](http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20051226-122526-7310r) That seems likely. Again though, if he has the inherent athority to order them unilaterally than he does not need court approval. It seems to me that we have a basic conflict. I think the President as the commander in chief has the Constitutional responsibility to safeguard the Nation against all enemies foreign and domestic, and if that means ordering wiretaps, I think he has the athority to do so. On the other side of the coin, the court system defends our civil liberties. In either case the system comes down to a man’s decision. Either an appointed judge, or an elected official. ---
**Author:** ![lonesome\_loser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c68b51/32.png) [@lonesome\_loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lonesome_loser)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2005, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-and-aldrich-ames/337396/14 "2005-12-28T04:32:27Z")
No. It comes down to the laws of the land. No man, not even the president, is above the law. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2005, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-and-aldrich-ames/337396/15 "2005-12-28T04:37:19Z")
> [@Scylla](#): > > Elvis: > > In thinking about it more, I think you’ve found the pivot on this issue. Does the amended Fisa supersede the President’s “inherent athority,” or not? > > I’ll need to read the actual Fisa ammendment. The answer to this, in more general terms, is settled Constitutional law: the President is at his strongest when acting in accord with Congressional authority pursuant to statute; arguably free to act (but without as strong legal support) in a reasonably Constitutional manner in the absence of Congressional action; and in general not authorized to act in contravention of statutory provision by Congress. I don’t have the specific cite, but it’s the Steel Seizure Case in Truman’s time, and the “Presidential inherent authority” argument is spelled out and delimited in it. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2005, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-and-aldrich-ames/337396/16 "2005-12-28T04:43:50Z")
[This it, Poly? Truman’s seizure of the steel mills to prevent a wartime strike?](http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2005/12/20/spying/) > [@](#): > > The Supreme Court’s rationale for rejecting Truman’s claims applies with full force to Bush’s policy. In what proved to be the most influential opinion in the case, Justice Robert Jackson identified three possible scenarios in which a president’s actions may be challenged. Where the president acts with explicit or implicit authorization from Congress, his authority “is at its maximum,” and will generally be upheld. Where Congress has been silent, the president acts in a “zone of twilight” in which legality “is likely to depend on the imperatives of events and contemporary imponderables rather than on abstract theories of law.” But where the president acts in defiance of “the expressed or implied will of Congress,” Justice Jackson maintained, his power is “at its lowest ebb,” and his actions can be sustained only if Congress has no authority to regulate the subject at all. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2005, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-and-aldrich-ames/337396/17 "2005-12-28T04:49:04Z")
> [@lonesome loser](#): > > No. It comes down to the laws of the land. No man, not even the president, is above the law. I agree, but it’s actually a complex problem to figure out what applies here. The court scannot, for example, pass a law that outlaws congress and the Presidency and passes all power to judges. They cannot pass a law outlawing Congress’ athority to declare war. It is an inherent constitutional power of Congress. If as Gorelick argues the President has the “inherent power” to order searches than the court system cannot supersede that power. Indeed, it seems to make sense in the tradittion of the founders’ intent which was to have seperate systems of checks and balances. It seems to me pretty clear that the President has war powers and the responsibility to defend the country from threats, not the courts. At the same time the courts have the responsibility to uphold our civil liberties. It appears to me to be a direct conflict. Let’s look at a hypothetical and you tell me what you think: Let’s say the President feels that Osama Bin Laden is hiding in a house in Long Island. Let us say that the President feels the evidence that he is there is compelling, so he decides to seek a warrant rather than exercise his “inherent athority (provided such still exists”) The judge though is obstinate and refuses to grant a warrant. The President decides that the risk to the Nation is so great that the opportunity to catch OBL cannot be passed up and that his Constitutional athority to protect the Nation as it’s elected Commander in Chief supersedes the athority of a single appointed judge to refuse a warrant. The President asks you your opinion. What do you tell him? ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2005, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-and-aldrich-ames/337396/18 "2005-12-28T04:52:00Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > [This it, Poly? Truman’s seizure of the steel mills to prevent a wartime strike?](http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2005/12/20/spying/) Hmmm. After 9/11 wasn’t there a resolution by Congress to authorize the President to do what was necessary to pursue Al Quaeda? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2005, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-and-aldrich-ames/337396/19 "2005-12-28T04:53:45Z")
There is no threat to the nation. Your hypothetical does not apply. You’re creating an imaginary crisis. Even so, my answer would be that President needs to follow court orders. The Executive Branch is not autonomous. It sounds like you want an activist presidency where legislative and judical checks do not apply. We just overthrew a government like that. ---
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2005, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-and-aldrich-ames/337396/20 "2005-12-28T04:59:34Z")
> [@Scylla](#): > > Hmmm. After 9/11 wasn’t there a resolution by Congress to authorize the President to do what was necessary to pursue Al Quaeda? No, he was authorized to use force not to do what was necessary. Are you backing off of your claim in the OP that Clinton violated FISA or even held it to be an abridgement of Executive power? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-and-aldrich-ames/337396.md?page=2)