’)On September 11, 2001 Osama Bin Laden launched the first major strike of his war on America. The purpose of this attack was twofold: 1) Mass murder 2) Destruction of the American idea of invincibility and safety. He was able to achieve goal #1, but #2 has been a little harder to come by. Thanks to the Republican party, that may no longer be true.
Only the modern Republican party could make the seemingly inane argument that being against spying on citizens without a warrant is the position of the less patriotic. Its just dumb, period. There are reasons why we divide power between the three branches, why we are a nation of laws – we aren’t animals, but a mature nation 229 years in the making.
Here’s the main problem: we all want terrorists dead but not at the expense of American democracy. It would have been easy for the Bush administration to get a warrant before, during, and after their surveillance. There doesn’t seem to have been any reason for them not doing this than to make clear to the congress and the citizenship that the president is above the rules and if he says so it must be true.
Nice idea, but that isn’t America.
One argument is that “we’re at war” and we suspend certain niceties in war. Well the problem is, the President seems to have forgotten to declare war. And it isn’t that he can’t. Many folks (including myself) have argued that we should declare war on Al Qaeda, using a similar standard that the congress used in the First Barbary War. They never did and still haven’t, so the freaking president doesn’t get to suspend America. And anyone who disagrees, quite simply, is in the same camp as Bin Laden.
Not the sort of company I wish to keep.
“Use for the money came in 1785, when the dey of Algiers took two American ships hostage and demanded $60,000 in ransom for their crews. Then-ambassador to France Thomas Jefferson argued that conceding the ransom would only encourage more attacks. His objections fell on the deaf ears of an inexperienced American government too riven with domestic discord to make a strong show of force overseas. The U.S. paid Algiers the ransom, and continued to pay up to $1 million per year over the next 15 years for the safe passage of American ships or the return of American hostages. Payments in ransom and tribute to the privateering states amounted to 20 percent of United States government annual revenues in 1800.’
Remember the vociferous denials by the Reagan Administration that
it was not trading ‘arms for hostages’ in the 1980’s?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran-Contra_Affair
Too many in government think the shortcut to success is justified no matter what obstacles (Constitutional or otherwise) may impede
their progress.
I’ve seen the talking points Pedro, and they’re as lame as when the RNC originally put them out. I am, however, pleased to see the new right wing love for President Clinton has now extended to President Carter. You guys’ll come around soon enough.
(by this logic they’re using Albert Einstein is the one responsible for dropping the atomic bomb)
Did anyone else note that no one actually responded to the fact that this was approved of by two previous democratic presidents?
Does this change the “Your not King, Bush” headlines that OW used?
Maybe, as it turns out, it isn’t illegal?
I am with Curmudgeon, lets find out what actually happened. Though apparently Curmudgeon has code-word clearance (stating as fact that Clenis and Carter never wiretapped without a FISA warrant), so maybe he can tell us….
First, it’s “hoist by your own petard.”
Second, the “someone else did it first” argument does not make it any less wrong now than it was then. Stop pretending that you can foist blame for this off on someone else.
drpedro employs Standard Republican Debate Tactic #2: the Two-Wrongs-Make-A-Right-Wing defense (“Clinton did it too!”)
Even if we assume for the sake of argument that it’s actually true, that Clinton and Carter did actually authorize spying on American citizens, it doesn’t make it suddenly OK for Bush to do it. It’s still illegal.
Your document only shows that a Clinton official believed Clinton *could* do it, not that he *did* do it. Got anything else?
CLINTON ADMINISTRATION SECRET SEARCH ON AMERICANS — WITHOUT COURT ORDER
CARTER EXECUTIVE ORDER: ‘ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE’ WITHOUT COURT ORDER
Bill Clinton Signed Executive Order that allowed Attorney General to do searches without court approval
Clinton, February 9, 1995: “The Attorney General is authorized to approve physical searches, without a court order”
Jimmy Carter Signed Executive Order on May 23, 1979: “Attorney General is authorized to approve electronic surveillance to acquire foreign intelligence information without a court order.”
WASH POST, July 15, 1994: Extend not only to searches of the homes of U.S. citizens but also — in the delicate words of a Justice Department official — to “places where you wouldn’t find or would be unlikely to find information involving a U.S. citizen… would allow the government to use classified electronic surveillance techniques, such as infrared sensors to observe people inside their homes, without a court order.”
Deputy Attorney General Jamie S. Gorelick, the Clinton administration believes the president “has inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches for foreign intelligence purposes.”
Secret searches and wiretaps of Aldrich Ames’s office and home in June and October 1993, both without a federal warrant.
The term “hoisted by your own petard” comes to mind…..
Pedro, you’re already enough of a joke. Next time you plan on spamming with some false cut n’ paste comparison, please make sure it’s worth the pixels.
Clinton and Carter never wiretapped without a FISA warrant. Bush has. Case Closed.
Now we move onto whether Bush broke the law. Please, join us?
Can you imagine the yellow shit storm if any democratic Prez even wet-dreamed what Bush has done. Methinks the good Dr. doth protest
too much.
Got a cite for that, JD?
Oh, wait, here’s one:http://thinkprogress.org/2005/12/20/drudge-fact-check/
First of all, yes we do know. Using a wiretap on a U.S. citizen without a warrant is illegal, even if the president and the Justice Department make like Peter Pan and clap their hands really hard to try and make it legal.
Second of all, I didn’t vote for Clinton, because I thought he was a lying scumbag, but I never heard about him authorizing illegal wiretaps (which is no mystery, because it’s a talking point and didn’t actually happen, as TomY’s link points out). But as I said, even if it were true, how does that make what Bush does legal? Even if all the outrage is partisan, Bush still broke the law. Two wrongs don’t make a right.
Clinton actually executed warrantless searches, and was taken to court over the admissability of the evidence. But, since you moonbats seem unwilling to admit that anything like that could have happened until anybody else’s watch …
drpedro employs Standard Republican Debate Tactic #2: the Two-Wrongs-Make-A-Right-Wing defense ( Clinton did it too! )
Even if we assume for the sake of argument that it s actually true, that Clinton and Carter did actually authorize spying on American citizens, it doesn t make it suddenly OK for Bush to do it. It s still illegal.
First of all, we don’t know if it was illegal. Second of all, the point of pointing out that it’s been done by Clinton and Carter is to show that the OUTRAGE!! expressed by many on the left is as usual, political.
The fact that this program has been successful in THWARTING TERROR ATTACKS apparently means nothing to any of you. And because of what? Because phone calls where one party is on foreign soil is on the line are being listened to?
Amazing. Harry Reid brags about killing the entire Patriot Act, loons are mentioning the word ‘impeachment’ because the President authorized the NSA to gather intelligence from phone calls where terrorist attacks are being plotted. And you wonder why the public doesn’t trust Democrats on issues of national security?
And if you don’t believe me, ask the president. Bush said:
pedro, pedro, pedro.
When are you gonna learn? Quote Drudge…you get burned.
Oh, really? Here’s a little more of the text of Executive Order 12949:
Buh…buh…but what about Carter?
Executive Order 12139:
[...] mr. curmudgeon) MORE: Duncan says traitor . I m liable to think people who make it easier for enemies of America to do their work are actively work [...]
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/terrorism/fisa111802opn.pdf
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/jun2001/bomb-j08.shtml
http://www.kslaw.com/library/pdf/Desena_e_surveillance_bill.pdf
Political reasons? Fuck you. I oppose it because I don’t want any president to have that kind of power. I wouldn’t have wanted Clinton or Carter to have that power either, though I don’t believe they actually broke the law. And as far as THWARTING TERROR ATTACKS go, you’re referring to the “blowtorch the Brooklyn Bridge” plot. What a yapping idiot you are. First in line to surrender your freedoms to anyone with a flag or a badge.
Here is the big difference between what Carter and Clinton may have done: they did it in the open, subject to judicial interpretation AND public scrutiny. Get it? A court said you can’t do this, and that was the final authority on the matter. Bush did it in secret so no court could make a ruling. Get it? I mean it’s so freaking obvious, even Jay Caruso should understand it; Dr. Pedro, well, “See No Evil” comes to mind.
And, how do we know that this program has been successful? Bush told us? And how do we know that traditional and legal means couldn’t have been as successful, or even more successful? We don’t know who Bush spied on, why he spied on them, or any of the details. He probably was eavesdropping on Cindy Sheehan and Howard Dean.
they did it in the open, subject to judicial interpretation AND public scrutiny. Get it?
Yeah and it worked wonders didn’t it? How many times did Al Qaeda strike the US and US property before this program was put into place?
And, how do we know that this program has been successful? Bush told us?
Oh I get it. The reporting that this helped to prevent terrorist attacks is of course subject to review, but any accusation that the President broke the law is 100% right on the mark even though legal scholars a lot smarter than all of us here are saying it wasn’t.
What we DO know for sure is that somebody broke the law by leaking this information to the NY Times, and like I said earlier I find it rather disappointing to see people who were saying somebody committed TREASON by revealing Valerie Plame’s name want to affix a medal to the stooge who revealed this information.
Like I said, political.
Violating the 4th amendment is now “political”. Interesting.
As Jay throws away another chance to be taken seriously.
“There doesn t seem to have been any reason for them not doing this than to make clear to the congress and the citizenship that the president is above the rules and if he says so it must be true”
Try to get beyond comic book stereoypes. Do you really, really believe Bush was trying to show Congress and the country (wow) that he is above the rules and if he says so, it must be true? Is that your thoughtful, mature analysis? Bush just up and says my goal in life is show that I am above the rules. Thats it. Just a random electro pulse to show he is above the laws. I mean, seriously, if you must deal in the paranoid style, you can do much better than lame-brained juvenalia. I mena, if iw ere a paranoid, Bush-is-the-bogeyman leftist with a brain, I would opine that in trying to respond to terrorism Bush overreacted, and went too far and violate civil liberties.
Dugger, You Children get Away from That Keyboard, Right Now or I’m Going to Tell your Father
Jay C, there is no review, all we have is Bush’s word. There is no checks there are no balances and there is no one assuring the protection of citizen’s rights therefore it does not fit in with the basis of our government and thus is UNAMERICAN.
Remember, BEFORE this program was put in place and BEFORE 9-11, Bush had no interest in fighting or preventing terrorism. This program would have been useless because information dredged would have fallen on deaf ears.
It seems disappointing but not surprising to me that a lot of conservatives take the view that the government, and in particular the Bush administration, can do any illegal or unconstitutional thing it wants, as long as word of it never reaches the public. “See No Evil” republicans. Disgusting.
What are the actual parallels with the Plame case? They both involved leaking classified information. All similarities end there. Plame involved the Bush Administration leaking information to attempt to punish and discredit a vocal policy critic, and then try to stall and misdirect the investigation, political from start to finish in motive. Snoopgate involves someone informing the public of Bush engaging in probable illegal and unconstitutional circumventing of the law, misconduct etc. That is whistleblowing, and the politics come in as fallout of misconduct rather than motive in revelation.
Oh, I guess both cases involve misconduct by the Bush Administration, I guess there was more than one similarity. However, using one to defend the other still leaves us with misdeeds by the Bush Administration and really isn’t a good defense.
Violating the 4th amendment is now political . Interesting.
Once again, you’ve reached a conclusion and based on what? The 4th amendment protects against unreasonable searches and seizures. Again, it is not established fact that Bush broke any laws or violated anybody’s constitutional rights. But of course, rather than trying to look at it rationally, you’d rather break out the tar and feathers.
There is no checks there are no balances and there is no one assuring the protection of citizen s rights therefore it does not fit in with the basis of our government and thus is UNAMERICAN.
These intercepts weren’t being used in order to gather evidence to present at some trial. It was being used to gather intelligence. The law allows the search and surveillance of those working for or on behalf of a foreign agent without a warrant. As far as I am concerned, any person in this country that conspires with terrorist organizations and is involved with plots to commit terrorist acts automatically cedes the priviledge they have of being an American citizen. It’s as simple as that.
Remember, BEFORE this program was put in place and BEFORE 9-11, Bush had no interest in fighting or preventing terrorism. This program would have been useless because information dredged would have fallen on deaf ears.
Oh please. Spare me the Clinton administration “we need to cover our asses for our failures” accusations that the Bush administration had no interest in terrorism.
It seems disappointing but not surprising to me that a lot of conservatives take the view that the government, and in particular the Bush administration, can do any illegal or unconstitutional thing it wants, as long as word of it never reaches the public. See No Evil republicans. Disgusting.
Once again (and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again) we do not know what he did was illegal. We DO know however the following:
If you people want to argue about this, do so with the FACTS. Stop pretending Bush got together with 2-3 other people and decided to order the NSA to start listening in on American’s phone calls.
They both involved leaking classified information. All similarities end there.
You’re right. Because the Plame case is a JOKE compared to what has happened here.
Whoever leaked this information, did so, prior to the Presidential election in 2004. It doesn’t take a fucking rocket scientist to figure out that political motivations were at the heart of the leak. This program has been going on since 2002. If the so-called ‘whistleblowers’ were so concerned that Bush was engaging in illegal activities, they would have gone to the press THEN. Not in the months leading up to the Presidential election. Again, the Attorney General was involved, NSA legal counsel and members of Congress. They ALL KNEW about this from the start. Any objections to the legality, especially on the part of the NSA would have and should have come forward at that time.
Whoever leaked this information did serious damage to our intelligence gathering operations and should spend some time in prison.
Fact, I’ve read it and I understand it better than you. Contrary to what you believe, it’s not absolute.
If you’re on parole or on probation, your house or car can be searched at any time for any reason without a warrant.
There is also an ‘emergency exception’ that allows police to enter and search a residence without a warrant.
There’s the ‘plain view’ exception to obtaining a warrant.
Searches at borders are also an exception.
It’s for this reason, jumping up and down and shouting, “BUSH BROKE THE LAW!! BUSH BROKE THE LAW!!” is premature.
The 4th Amendment
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Once again, JayC you read the words, but don’t understand them. They say that unreasonable searches are banned. Period. What makes searches “reasonable” is that a warrant can be obtained for them. It says NO warrants shall be issued unless supported by oath… etc…..
Then apparently I’ve misapprehended the reason for your spirited defense of the President’s order. Your deep concern for truth and justice is somewhat obscured by a cloud of invective.
My bad.
(And for the record, “the stooge who revealed this information” should be the “stooges.” The New York Times claims “nearly a dozen” sources. They haven’t said how near.)
If it s premature to jump up and down and shout BUSH BROKE THE LAW!! , isn t it also a bit premature to lean on the caps lock key and insist he didn t?
I never said he didn’t. I said we don’t know yet. Understand the difference?
If what Bush did was illegal, then let the chips fall where they may. However, if it is found that what he did was legal and constitutional, I sincerely doubt you people will be offering up any apologies.
Yes, Jay, there are exceptions to the Fourth Amendment. They’re spelled out in the law and they’ve been tested in court. None of those exceptions seem to apply here.
If it’s premature to “jump up and down and shout BUSH BROKE THE LAW!!”, isn’t it also a bit premature to lean on the caps lock key and insist he didn’t? The President has confirmed that he ordered surveillance without warrants, and as you correctly point out, there are legal experts with differing opinions about the legality of these actions.
However, you seem willing to listen only to those who provide cover for your one-sided rants.
Whuh?
We were talking about your statement, “I never said he didn’t,” referring to whether the President violated the FISA statute.
However, you’ve been raising a vigorous defense of his order and campaigning very hard to counter the arguments of those who think he did violate the law.
If your purpose is not to assert that the law wasn’t violated, what is it?
All examples you provided are subject to judicial review, which is suspiciously absent from what Bush did. Apples and oranges, Jay C.
what they did was legally wrong, even though their intentions were good and not outside any legal bounds.
Sorry. That should read:
…what they did was legally wrong, even though their intentions were good and they thought they were not acting outside any legal bounds.
However, you ve been raising a vigorous defense of his order and campaigning very hard to counter the arguments of those who think he did violate the law.
Yes, I have raised a vigorous defense. I think what he’s doing is right. However, I am not an attorney and therefore, whether or not I think the program is legal is nothing more than my opinion. As such, I said “We don’t know” if what he did was illegal.
My example about the cops is that they will often do something in good faith to catch a criminal. Unfortunately, we later learn that what they did was legally wrong, even though their intentions were good and not outside any legal bounds.
This isn’t difficult to understand.
Jay cheered everytime Stalin hauled some “enemy of the state” to a gulag in the middle of the night. No constitution to worry about there.
Then apparently I ve misapprehended the reason for your spirited defense of the President s order. Your deep concern for truth and justice is somewhat obscured by a cloud of invective.
Oh that’s right Oh Keeper of Truth & Justice. I suppose you stand up and cheer whenever a judge dismisses a case against a rapist or murderer because even though the police were acting in good faith, something they did overstepped constitutional bounds.
Regardless of whether it was legal?
Legal or not, acting in secrecy without oversight or accountability, his stated intentions are moot. We don’t know the scope of his snooping or his targets. Furthermore, when a cop acts wrongly, there are lawyers and judges to make rulings and hold the officer accountable to the law, it isn’t up to the officer to decide if his actions were right or wrong.
Legal or not, acting in secrecy without oversight or accountability, his stated intentions are moot.
They did not act in “secrecy.”. The Attorney General was involved. The NSA legal counsel was involved. Select members of Congress were involved. Again, if this was illegal, why didn’t those informed object at the time?
Oh and here’s a former Clinton Assc. Attorney General arguing that Bush had the legal authority to do what he did (Again, if it was so cut and dry that what he did was illegal, the views of people with different legal expertise wouldn’t differ so much on the issue):
Emphasis mine. Another damned Pro-Bin Laden flunky I suppose….
Schmidt adds another nice paragraph toward the end of his defense of Bush’s order:
Yes, Jay, George Bush’s hand picked political appointees are exactly the people to oversee this. Right. And the talking point that select members of congress were involved is false. They were informed, and once informed could do absolutely nothing about the program but write classified letters to Bush voicing their concerns, letters that were probably never read. That sounds like involved to me.
According to you, it seems that the resolution allows Bush to do any damn thing he pleases. Note when that resolution was passed, Bush could have asked specifically for the power to implement his program but didn’t because they knew it would be denied.
And Quaker nails it right on the head, there is no safeguard to ensure the program is applied only to preventing terrorism. ABU Gonzales and Condi Rice are simply not reasonable choices. You earlier asserted that the leaker was motivated by politics to leak it before the election, a better guess is the leaker was disgusted because the program was used to monitor democratic political candidates and their employees. Prove it wrong.
Midderpidge,
Maybe you are thinking of Watergate? Or are you thinking of the FBI wiretaps that LBJ ordered on RNC headquarters during the 1964 presidential campaign? Again, two wrongs do not make a right, but I find it curious that no one on the Left thinks of LBJ as a power-hungry despot out to shred the Constitution and destroy civil liberties.
The real sticking point to all of this is that when we demand that the government “prevent” terrorism, we are demanding a nearly impossible task. They have few known suspects, scant knowledge of terrorist operations, and no knowledge of where attacks will take place. The only way to fill this blank slate is to gather a tremendous amount of leads and evidence, sift through them, and try to put pieces together. Sort of like the Iranians in 1979 sifting through bags of shredded documents from the US embassy and trying to tape them back together again.
Criminal investigations that lead to traditional search warrants always occur after a crime has been committed, or involve known criminals who are suspected of additional illegal activity. Traditional law enforcement approaches do not involve the prevention of crime, or the prediction of when unspecified persons may commit unspecified acts. As I said earlier, we are asking those involved with terrorism prevention to do what is nearly impossible. And in order to accomplish that task, they need a different set of tools than police officers and criminal courts use.
One of the biggest mistakes we made during the 1990’s was to assign terrorism prevention to traditional law enforcement agencies. We ended up with a bunch of useless nonsense like an indictment against Osama Bin Laden that did absolutely nothing to prevent him from striking US interests again and again, and we ended up with the tangle of red tape that kept Zacharias Moussaoui’s laptop computer locked up until after 9/11.
The American people demanded something different, and President Bush delivered. His approach admittedly had flaws, but it seems to be working. Maybe the Democrats would be wise to heed Bill Clinton’s famous advice: “Mend it, don’t end it.”
Midderpidge also wrote, “…a better guess is the leaker was disgusted because the program was used to monitor democratic political candidates and their employees. Prove it wrong.”
The scuttlebut now is that Sen. Jay Rockefeller himself leaked the story to the NYT. (“He who protests the loudest…”)
In light of the fact that Rockefeller himself confessed a few weeks ago to personally visiting Saudia Arabia, Jordan, and Syria (a recognized state sponsor of terror since 1979) in 2002 and discussing US war plans with their leaders, it certainly seems reasonable that he or some of his staff might have been legitimate targets for NSA eavesdropping.
See, if you go to the enemy on the pretext of discussing war plans with him, people might think that you committed treason. Anyone remember Rudolf Hess?