Oh, yes, Karl! Keep that promise! Please! 
:dubious: So if FISA does not restrain the president. what does it mean?
Errrmmm . . . Jimmy, weren’t you paying any attention during the Roberts and Alito confirmation hearings?!
It seems to me that that is the administration’s approach to this. A ‘what are you going to do, impeach me?’ approach. He knows that if push comes to shove, the Republicans will blink first, and nothing will result. Why would they bother to answer any hard questions when they know that nothing will become of it?
Am I the only one that felt that the way Gonzales was tap dancing around some of the issues with his answers, that there is more than just the one program out there? He kept himself very busy framing every question asked of him down to it’s least harmful form. Something Richard Clarke pointed out was common practice years ago.
Well, I think part of what we’re seeing is members of the Congress and Senate miffed that their pillar has been shortened, and the judicial branch may also see it as an afront to their own pillar.
“Senator, that is an operational issue and I won’t be getting into that.”
:rolleyes:
. . . OK, I’m trying very hard not to put a cheap-shot Freudian construction on that . . .
No, I’m not! 
Pfft.
…OR I’LL TAKE YOU ALL WITH ME!!!
-Karl Rove, paraphrased
It means that anyone not operating under explicit instructions from the prez can be prosecuted. BTW, I’m not saying that is my view, I’m just explaining what I think the administration’s position is.
Thank goodness it isn’t part of an ongoing investigation, or he wouldn’t be able to comment on it at all.
Wouldn’t the “unitary executive” theory kind of preclude that argument?
FISA particularily mentions what can be done with presidential authorization (here for example) . It’s a pretty bizarre argument to say that the writers of the act meant that everything else prohibited by the act could also be legal with presidential authorization, they just forgot to mention it in certain sections.
And if these sort of wiretaps can be authorized by the prez, why bother to set up a seperate court at all to review them? Wouldn’t it be easier just of have an FBI agent who wanted to tap someones phones ask the WH instead of the extraneous FISA court?
It doesn’t matter, according to Bush’s argument. If he has constitutional authority to wiretap, Congress can’t take that away by passing a law. Additionally, of course, he argues that the AUMF gave him implicit war powers that supercede FISA.
Look, this is a classic battle of power between the legislative and executive branches of government. The only forced resolution would be for Congress to defund the program, or for the courts to decide otherwise. But this won’t go to court unless the adminstration uses this wiretap infor against someone as evidence in a trial.
Can they specifically defund just the NSA warentless wiretapping program, or would they have to defund an entire dept. of the NSA to prevent the one program from getting tax money?
Or unless someone who finds out he/she is being wiretapped sues for an injunction to stop it.
And there might be other ways the issue could get to court. Any ideas, lawyers?
Bush’s argument is much more simple than you credit. It goes “My responsibility to defend the country is absolute. Therefore I have an absolute right to do anything I want under color of defending the country. Period.”
No, *classic * battles of that nature have been fought around the edges of the principle of checks and balances, not its core. This time, the executive is claiming that there is *no * real check on its power.
Would you classify Nixon’s “executive privilege” theory as “fringes” or “core”?
ACLU & AFSC Seek Surveillance Records
AT&T Sued For Helping NSA Eavesdrop
Lawyer Seeks Dismissal of Criminal Charges Over NSA Surveillance
Deep into the fringes - his executive-privilege claims were limited to control of paperwork, not basic policy matters, but he took that point to extremes. There weren’t any major consequences to the nation or its civil liberties stemming from Nixon’s claims to executive privilege as such, although there certainly were from his use of the FBI, CIA, and IRS to harass people on his “enemies list” and anyone else he thought was subversive. That stuff was really why he was driven out of office; the legal issues and balance-of-power stuff and third-rate-burglary stuff were essentially wrapping paper whose purpose was to preempt claims that the impeachment effort was simply partisanism.
Bush denies the existence of any check on his power* at all*. That’s as core as it could get.
They won’t get them.
That’s interesting, but unclear how that would affect the program if the suit was successful.
Firvilous lawsuit-- it won’t go anywhere unless they have specific claims, which they don’t.
Good question. It might be next to impossible to defund this program, even if there were the votes to do so (which I don’t think there would be).