OK, Rice is saying that FISA authorizes the president to take this action. Interesting. I bet he is using the “we are at war” argument. We’ll see if that flies.
OOps. Looks like I jumped the gun on that. Maybe she isn’t quoting FISA. I taped Meet the Press, so I’ll see what she has to say later.
Good thing she isn’t quoting FISA, she’d lose. meanwhile, here is a comment by John Yoo. I find it chilling.
This is the guy who wrote the “opinion” on presidential powers. The Constitution’s obsolete, and absolute presidential power has nothing to do with 9/11.
You had it right the first time, John. Rice is indeed invoking FISA.
Here is the take on Rice, from an very biased source (at least they admit their bias - how refreshing). However, they do link to an MSNBC transcript. Biased source or not, a full and literal transcript carries some weight.
http://www.crooksandliars.com/
MR. RUSSERT: What are the other authorities?
SEC’Y RICE: Tim, again, I’m not a lawyer, but the president has constitutional authority and he has statutory authorities.
RUSSERT: What Democrats and Republicans in Congress are asking, what is the authority that you keep citing? What law? What statute? Where in the Constitution does it say that the President can eavesdrop, wiretap American citizens without a court order?
RICE: Tim, the President has authorities under FISA which we are using and using actively. He also has authorities that derive from his role as Commander in Chief and his need to protect the country. He has acted within his constitutional authority and within statutory authority. Now, I am not a lawyer and I am quite certain that the Attorney General will address a lot of these questions.
So Rice is trying to school us all on the law, but I can almost guarantee she doesn’t even know what the law says. She also repeats the “he is protecting us” talking point. She covers herself by repeating “I am not a lawyer”. I want to hear a valid opinion from a disinterested third party who is neutral, and who IS a lawyer.
Full transcript: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032608/
Video: http://movies.crooksandliars.com/MTP-COndi-Bush-Spys.wmv
Meanwhile, BILL KRISTOL is trying somehow to blame even this on Bil Clinton and the NY Times. Talk about obvious and gross misdirection.
And, Dana Rohrabacher tries to justify it with smoke and mirrors but was shot down by Bob Barr
http://movies.crooksandliars.com/TSR-Barr-ROHRABACHER-12-16-05.wmv
BARR: What’s wrong with it is several-fold. One, it’s bad policy for our government to be spying on American citizens through the National Security Agency. Secondly, it’s bad to be spying on Americans without court oversight. And thirdly, it’s bad to be spying on Americans apparently in violation of federal laws against doing it without court order. …
ROHRABACHER: Not only proud, we can be grateful to this president. You know, I’ll have to tell you, if it was up to Mr. Schumer, Senator Schumer, they probably would have blown up the Brooklyn Bridge. The bottom line is this: in wartime we expect our leaders, yes, to exercise more authority.
BARR: Well, first of all, or last of all, this so-called plot to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge was bogus because it had to do with a group of idiots who were planning to dismantle it with blow torches.
I just watched the Meet the Press interview with Condi. Russert pressed her **very **hard on this question, and she dodged it. She did say that the Attorney General would address the specifics of which statute or constitutional provision gives the president this authority. I suspect Gonzales will be called before Congress very shortly.
Good job on the transcripts, Steve. Yeah she did say FISA, but also other statutory and constitutional authority (as per your quote). I’m willing to give Condi a pass on this since she is indeed not a lawyer, but only on the condition that we get answers from Gonzales very soon. Soon, as in this week.
Same here. Condi may be as brilliant as some people say, I can’t say otherwise, but she admits she has no legal training. That’s OK. I would like to see this aired out in Congress and on C-Span for all of us to see. I want answers. Simply invoking terror or Iraq, as was tried during the Bush speech would not be good enough. Neither would be the attempt to blame the media (the Times). Straight answers, with no deflection, avoidance, or attacks. Just the facts and the law. Somehow though, I don’t think we’ll get that.
I’ve got an honest question. Is it normal for the Sec. of State to address a matter such as this one? Isn’t this a domestic issue? Where’s Bush’s security advisor?
I just don’t understand why the Administration trumps out the same talking heads all the time.
I suspect that Condi was booked on MtP before this scandal broke. It would be natural, considering Thursday’s election in Iraq. I wouldn’t say she was trotted out by the administration, rather invited by Russert’s crew. Russert querried her about this because she just happened to be his guest that day.
But, this has both domestic and international components since it involves the NSA, which traditionally focuses on foreign espionage.
I pretty much agree with that assesment. The jury’s still out on the question of legality, but the bigger fish isn’t so much whether or not this is legal, but what exactly they’re trying to hide with all this secrecy. Given the issues they’ve raised, that the judges in charge aren’t fast enough in granting warrants, they could have just taken steps - in public - to make the system more efficient. It doesn’t take judges any longer to look over documents than it does national security officials - they don’t put anything in the water fountains at law school. And there’s no way revealing this to the public compromises our national security. I really am not seeing the ‘aid and comfort’ for terrorists in knowing that, if one of your co-conspirators get caught (which of course we would take pains to avoid publicising), you should stop using the phone numbers that were on their computer (assuming you happened to know what numbers they were) 24 hours instead of 72 hours after they got caught. (I personally would stop using them immediately, just to be safe…) If revealing that information is the price of an open society I’m willing to pay for it.
Instead, what the administration is doing is bending over backwards to find a legal justification (they still seem to be working on getting their story straight) for things that would already be legal. At the very least, it’s an out-of-character political blunder from a president who’s known for his domestic politicking, but I think this is only the tip of the iceberg. We still don’t know why it is that he’s insisting on such secrecy, and when we find out, it’s a fair bet that it’ll push the president closer to impeachment than anything that’s come out so far.
Excellent. I’ve wondered what all the secrecy is about. Why do prisoners have to be taken to Guantanamo Bay? If everything being done in interrogation is legal then couldn’t it be done in the US?
Because torturing/interrogating the prisoners isn’t the only factor in not bringing them to the US. There are other reasons why it might be desirable to keep them in a foreign country. For one thing, bringing them here would put them firmly into our legal system. Remembering trials like OJ’s this might not be the wisest course (can you say ‘media circus’?). Also, it would be more difficult to maintain their quasi status as ‘enemy combatants’ if they were actually here I’d think. I’m sure there are other reasons as well.
-XT
Monstro: Further to what I said above, I really would like to see Bush trot out his Attorney General and have him make the circuit of political talk shows to tell us exactly why this activity is legal. That won’t happen, though. Unfortunately, we’re going to have to wait until January for Congressional hearings.
So?
The more I think about it the screwier your reasons get. There were thousands of German and Italian POW’s in US home country during WWII and none of them had any access to our legal system. So people brought here after having been taken in Afghanistan or Iraq or anywhere else and classified as POW’s wouldn’t have that access either.
From the administrations point of view, if they were POW’s they would be covered by the Geneva Convention and that forbids the sort of “aggressive interrogation” so loved by GW, Rummy and Cheney although not necessarily by military commanders.
You answered your own question…they were POW’s not ‘enemy combatants’. Terrorists are a new breed and ‘we’ have yet to figure out how they fit in…especially terrorist organizations that are nearly quasi-states or at least international bodies but without any sort of recognized government or ‘home land’. Couple that with outlaw regimes like the Taliban and the fact that the GC is pretty muddled about the whole question of non-uniformed combatants/insurgents (the GC still thinks in terms and defines conflicts in terms of states…not in terms of civilian soldiers, insurgents and terrorists) and you have a situation that isn’t even remotely comparable to WWII and the POW’s brought here at that time.
If you find my reasoning ‘screwier’ (you wn’t be alone Im’ sure :)) perhaps its not me but the situation…or perhaps you should dig a bit deeper into your own analogy to see the flaws between comparing prisoners of war in WWII to insurgents or terrorists captured since 9/11 with reguards to bringing these folks directly into the US.
-XT
I suspect, in it’s base form, it’s all old-fashioned IOKIARDI.
Which would be simply laughable if it weren’t for all the mindless Bush apologists who eagerly embrace every cock-eyed excuse for the excesses of this Presidency.
What I was trying to do was point out that your statement that if the prisoners were on US soil they would have access to our legal system is disproved by the example of prisoners who were on our soil but had no access to our legal system.
As to the “enemy combatant” crap, that’s just a semantic dodge to avoid the Geneva Convention.
As to “outlaw” regimes, the Japanese in WWII didn’t follow the Geneva Convention but it wasn’t official US policy to torture prisoners in order to gain intelligence, although I suspect there was some indivitual mistreatment for revenge.
I don’t buy this facile statement that everything is now different. The world wasn’t invented yesterday. Other countries have undergone terrorist attacks for years without going slightly batty over them. It’s time we grew up and stop trying to conduct our national affairs like a scene from a Clint Eastwood movie. I’m tired of quibbles over terminology being used in order to justify acts that demean the US and make a mockery of our claim to be of a higher order character.
:tired sigh: As has been pointed out on these boards endlessly, they **do not ** fall under the Geneva Convention, hence there is no need to avoid it. Read it sometime. It defines “lawful combatants.” They ain’t it.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unlawful_combatant:
What “competent tribunal” has determined the status of the detainees in question? And were they treated as POWs prior to that determination, as the Conventions require? And have they been treated with humanity, including the right to fair trial, since that determination, as the Conventions require?
Even tireder sigh: They are named that precisely to deny them the protection of the Geneva Convention.
As BrainGlutton points out a determination by a competent tribunal is supposed to make the call. In these cases the competent tribunal consisted of GW Bush in accord with the advice of John Yoo, aka Shyster K. Pettifogger. If you aren’t ashamed of such an unscrupulous process then so be it.