No, because the SCOTUS gets to say what the constitution means. Of course, Bush might ask Chief Justice Roberts what army he’s going to use to enforce his decisions. 
Of course it does, according to Bush and Bricker. Appareantly Bush can do any thing he wants and it’s legal because he did it. Nixon tried using that same argument. Well, this thread has gone on long enough for me. I’m tired of it. I’m sick of it. We will see what happens in Congress and the courts.
Got any evidence that either of those two disagrees with the concept of judicial review? No, I didn’t think you did…
Ah, so “despotic” behavior to you is not un-American, unconstitutional, or immoral? You must have a strikingly high standard. Or low standard, I should say.
If people can’t distinguish a difference between your defending the legality of slavery or spying on citizens from your approving of such topics, perhaps you’d do well to, I dunno, state your own fucking opinion on an issue now and then, instead of acting like you’re standing in front of a jury. In other words, instead of simply replying “it’s legal to hold slaves,” your 19th-century counterpart could say something like, “Shamefully, it’s legal to hold slaves. I detest that this hasn’t been addressed in the courts by now, because denying someone’s humanity is evil.”
No shit? Thanks for the recap.
Who the fuck knows? If I believed Bush’s activites were legal, why would I want there to be an investigation? Waste of money and time, right?
The point is that you never discuss what YOU think. You express no values or personal beliefs, or anything that can’t be found on Lexis. So how the hell could I know what you really feel about an issue? I can only guess from the arguments you make upon which side you fall.
Yes, I know I’m flawed and not always able to give strictly reasoned debate. I’m emotional and passionate about issues, and I cannot understand how someone can continually argue from such a dry, amoral position. That’s why I only ever lurk in Great Debates. {shudder}
I see, do you believe Congress intended t he AUMF to do this?
In addition, would you please respond to my post 338 .
Despotic behavior may, or may not, be un-American, unconstitutional, or immoral. It depends on what the behavior is. Despotic behavior is simply that which tends towards an assumption of absolute power or authority. As the President is the absolute authority of one of the three branches of government, and the only branch that’s embodied by one person, some assumption of absolute authority in his constitutionally-mandated area is appropriate. On the other hand, attempting to usurp authority that properly belongs to Congress or the judiciary is inappropriate. So… it depends.
There are fifty-seven zillion posters on this board offering some version of that song. I’ve said it more than once myself, but I don’t need to include an asterisked disclaimer on every single post I make.
What we KNOW of Bush’s activities is legal. Bush did not disclose this voluntarily; he was forced into it by the leak. It’s reasonable to wonder what else he might have authorized of more dubious legality. An investigation is certainly reasonable.
How I feel is absolutely irrelevant to the accuracy of the position I’m espousing. I’m reminded of the line in A Few Good Men when Lt. Weinberg comments on how Lt Galloway emotionally protested an adverse court ruling:
Either my point has merit, or it doesn’t. I find YOUR attitude kind of scary; it suggests to me that you’d let pass a questionable line of reasoning from someone that’s “on your side” – after all, he feels the right things, he’s on the right side - why worry about every little smidgen of accuracy?
No, I suspect the members that voted for this didn’t realize what the effect of their authorization would be.
Interestingly, one of Clinton’s Justice Dept Lawyers thinks the President had legal authority to OK taps. The more this thing plays out, the more it looks like a classic President vs Congress battle. I don’t think any president wants to think that Congress can tell him what he can and cannot do.
Interesting, thats quite a departure from the typical interpetation of laws that you make. Why aren’t we limiting the interpetation to what it says and/or what congress intended?
Actually, it sounds more to me like The President against a hostile media playing ‘gotcha politics’, and Congress jumping on board after smelling some blood in the water. Members of Congress knew about this a long time ago, and many had to certainly know that Bill Clinton engaged in warrantless wiretaps for the same reason as did (I believe) Carter. None of this would be news to veteran members of Congress.
The Democrats better be careful, though. This issue is NOT a winner for them. If Bush gets completely vindicated on this, the Democrats are going to damage what’s left of their already weak reputation on security. For example, as I pointed out in a GD thread, one of the reasons that the 9-11 plot wasn’t caught beforehand was because Zacarias Moussoui’s surveillance team could not get a warrant under FISA.
John Kerry said that this war should not be primarily military, but primarily ‘intelligence and law enforcement’. Well, now he’s on record as opposing at least this form of intelligence gathering. Wait 'till that comes back to bite him in the ass in 2008.
This whole issue speaks directly to the central problem the 9-11 commission found - that there is a wall of separation between domestic law enforcement and foreign intelligence, and terrorists can exploit it. Jame Gorelick, the Attorney General for Clinton, defended Clinton’s use of warrantless wiretaps for that very reason.
We keep hearing all this talk of ‘terrorist chatter’, and how that allows the government to plan responses. How does anyone think they pick up that ‘chatter’?
A FISA warrant, as I understand it, is really designed to allow the feds to tap the communications of someone when they have probable cause to believe that person is an active agent of a foreign government. There are plenty of scenarios where it would never be allowed. For example, let’s say a Special Forces team in Pakistan, trailing a known terrorist, spots a young man travelling with the terrorist. A background check indicates the young man has a number of shady friends in the U.S., and a brother in Detroit. So they notify the NSA that this guy has a cell phone, and is about to use it. The NSA then puts a tap on the call as the guy calls one of his friends in the U.S.
Should the government ever do that kind of wiretapping? To make it more interesting, let’s say that the Special Forces team is tailing these guys because they have solid intelligence that a terrorist attack is going to happen in Detroit, and finding this guy who has contacts in Detroit is very troubling. Do you want your government following up on that?
Do you have cites for these Presidents breaking any laws when they made these wiretaps?
The Democrats better be careful, though. This issue is NOT a winner for them. If Bush gets completely vindicated on this, the Democrats are going to damage what’s left of their already weak reputation on security. For example, as I pointed out in a GD thread, one of the reasons that the 9-11 plot wasn’t caught beforehand was because Zacarias Moussoui’s surveillance team could not get a warrant under FISA.
The government can go to a secret court to get a warrant. I believe the test was lower that probable cause and was almost always granted.
But it’s not only Democrats who have expressed alarm at this activity. You are correct, though, in that there are important political as well legal issues involved. Right now, this is a big bump in the road at a time when Bush’s poll numbers were showing significant improvement. It may not matter long term, but that we won’t know until, well, the long term. I think Bush has done a lousy job explaining himself. If his legal ducks are all lined up, then put them out there front and center.
As I noted in the GD thread, I think the Moussoui case was a “pre-9/11 mindset” type of thing. What do you think the FBI lawyers would say today if such an activity was detected? I don’t see that as a FISA shortcoming, but an FBI shortcoming.
That’s not what you asked me to speculate on.
By all means, speculate in a way that would be a response to my statement.
This might be more appropriate here. In fact, it seems Congress was aware what the effect of their authorization might be… and denied it.
It does seem that the administration is claiming this is legal under FISA.
As Bricker and Hamlet have indicated the legality or otherwise of the wiretaps is an issue on which legal opinions do differ.
Similarly, our legal luminaries are as one that it is a question of the scope of congress’ authorisation. One view is that the question is the same as Hamdi (conduct war = wide power). The other view is that the constitutional protection against unreasonable searches and intrusions on privacy is widely protected; no ‘statute’ exists to overcome the protective prohibition.
Whichever of these is correct, there is no illegality in the sense that Lizzie Borden was entirely innocent. I.e. innocent of any criminallty until a duly constituted Court has made a finding of guilt. In that sense Bricker is entirely correct that no ‘illegality’ has occurred.
Conversely, one might ask; do the facts suggest a prima facie case, a reasonable likelihood, that the conduct involves a breach of the criminal law? In that case there is a legitimate question of criminal law to bring before a court.
At this point, I honestly don’t give a fuck. I am no longer going to play word games or “lets jump from law to law until we find the one sentence that allows something”, or “let’s jump from sentence to sentence in the same damn law until we find sonething we can twist”, or ponder my navel over the meaning of “notwithstanding”. I made my opinion known, if anyone has a problem with that, tough shit. To me, this whole thing smells just like Nixon’s “anything the president does is legal”. As for judicial review, I don’t think it’s such a giant leap to say any ruling I cite will be discarded out of hand as “irrelevant”. Further, if Bush is indeed working within the definitions of the Yoo Report, then he has decided that he has unlimited power - rendering the Congress and Supreme Court superfluous.
Right now, we have more and more high level “experts and senior somethings” saying it is illegal. We have a FISA Judge who just resigned over this. Ask them all your questions.
Further, we have Bush’s OWN WORDS that he intends to keep on doing domestic spying no matter what. How much clearer does it need to be??? It isn’t as if he couldn’t get the warrants, he could have. He could have even gotten them after the fact. So what’s the fucking problem?
How about when the government’s own attorneys are barred from expressing legal opinions? It may be a different subject, but it shows just “respect” there is for judicial review.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/09/AR2005120901894
Not only are dissenting opinions from people within government being ignored, they are being barred.
Bounce that against Bush’s claim for godlike “war powers” and Gonzales’ statement that he never went to Congress for warrantless wiretap authorization, because it was already a given that they would never grant it.
Spy Court Judge Quits In Protest
Jurist Concerned Bush Order Tainted Work of Secret Panel
Two associates familiar with his decision said yesterday that Robertson privately expressed deep concern that the warrantless surveillance program authorized by the president in 2001 was legally questionable and may have tainted the FISA court’s work … Robertson indicated privately to colleagues in recent conversations that he was concerned that information gained from warrantless NSA surveillance could have then been used to obtain FISA warrants. FISA court Presiding Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who had been briefed on the spying program by the administration, raised the same concern in 2004 and insisted that the Justice Department certify in writing that it was not occurring.
So let’s quit playing “gotcha” and all the “word games”. I don’t think Bush gives a good god damn about law, judicial review, or anything else. His entire presidency has been one long “my way or the highway”. Here’s hoping he finally bit of more than he can chew.
Sorry dude, if you make crazy assertions, you’re going to get called on it. With all the crap this adminstration does, it makes no sense to fabricate accusations against them.
But is it a fabrication if I have the CITES? I did provide cites after all. What I used as illustration/evidence cane from the news. It didn’t come out of the blue.
http://thinkprogress.org/2005/12/23/doj-memo-debunked/
Same take, from USA Today:
Here is a blog interpretation. Sure, it’s only a blog posing a question. It seems an awful lot like what we’ve been asking. It’s STILL a reasonable question…
Thanks for the answers. I was listening to Gonzales ramble about how the FISA is too slow to adapt to the post 9/11 and my blood was boiling.
BTW, Choie is one of my new favorite posters. Love the smarts and sass!