Writing in The National Review, McCarthy argues the administration line that we are at war and the President doesn’t need to follow the namby-pamby rules when we’re at war. Nevermind that the argument isn’t over whether the president can kill a threat to America or not, but why the heck the President can’t ask for a simple warrant to spy on American citizens in America — a warrant he could have asked for after the spying had already been done?
McCarthy goes on to say that the result of the 2004 elections gives the president the right to ignore the law, which is pretty stupid even for something in the National Review.
But the heart of the matter for the right is — if your excuse for possibly breaking the law and spying on Americans in America without a warrant boils down to “we’re at war” then do something constructive for once in your lives… tell the President to actually declare war.
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tell the President to actually declare war.
The President does not have the authority to declare war. That lies with the power of Congress. The President can only ask for a formal declaration.
I’d vote Democrat for the rest of my life if I thought for a minute the nimrods who represent the Democratic party in the Senate would even consider such an action.
Also, what is up with you libs adding “Co.” after Republicans’ last name. I commonly see the Bush admin referred to as “Bush Co.”. I mean are you all desperate to attack him that you have come up with lame ass names?
I suppose so.
why the heck the President can t ask for a simple warrant
Because he thought that has happened would have happened sooner.
50%, 51%, 60%, 75%, 90%, and 99% are not mandates.
Jay, Farris: So I’m supposed to believe that its just magic when the president’s proposals appear as legislation introduced in the congress, right? If so, why the hell do you guys have Frist & Co.? Their good looks? Introduce an act of war against Al Qaeda, I’ve been arguing in favor of it for years, and it would pass almost unanimously.
Maybe you could try to make an actual argument about why FISA is a constitutionally valid restriction upon the executive branch?
Given that the State Dept. and CIA have been in open revolt since his election, I would agree with the President to keep things as hush-hush as possible.
You mean the election where voters had a choice between a “War on Terrorism” and a “police action”. Where we had one candidate say “unilateral if necessary” and the other that we should “pass a global test”.
That election? Yeah, I think that given the prevelance of the issue in question, winning the election DOES give you a mandate.
As for not having a formal declaration, try blaming someone other than Bush.
Charlie mcCarthy glosses over the reasons the FISA act of 1978 came
into existence.
Our friend RMNixon decided that wire-tapping was his purview because
it was a National Security issue which was at stake,
….. our being at war and all.
OK, Oliver. Inasmuch as you say the declaration of war against Al Qaida “would pass almost unanimously”, let’s just pretend that has happened and do what logic and our survival instincts tell us needs to be done. And that is, crack, hack, snoop, and wiretap the bejesus out of any communication that looks as if it could involve a member of Al Qaida regardless of who else on the planet may be talking with, or writing to, or channeling them.
I notice the war declaration links you provided were from 65 years ago, and even an old fart like me wasn’t (quite) around then. I’m just guessing, therefore, when I surmise that the nature of conflict, and the definitions of things like “attack” and “victory”, and the kinds and motives of the “bad guys” in the world may have changed a tad since then.
If we have to worry about whether doing an “obvious right thing”, and doing critically important things in the circumstances, are LEGAL — then I think the problem is more with the law than with those who do the work necessary to protect the country.
You can soapbox the “declare war” notion all you want, of course. Change the law if it is getting in the way of acting sensibly. I’m fine with a congressional debate over this. But can we please just get over this hissy fit?
“[W]hen Congress enacts a law that attempts to regulate a power committed by the Constitution to the president, that law is unconstitutional.”
When are these rightwing nimrods going to actually read the Constitution. Article I of the Constitution says that Congress has the power “To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces”. Since the NSA is considered a quasi-military branch of the government its administration falls under the Executive branch. But does that mean the President has the power to “make rules for the government and regulation” of the NSA? Doesn’t appear that way.
The only war-making power the Constitution gives to the Executive is to serve as Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. That clause doesn’t allow the President to define the war in any and all manners that he sees fit without Congressional approval. The Constitution did not set up the President to be a dictator.
Sad things is that Bush knows this, which is why he comes up with his phony baloney about “consulting with Congress” over the program, even though this “consultation” was nothing of the sort.
I don’t think a war declaration would mean anything materially different from the AUMF. The problem is that a war declaration - or virtual war declaration via AUMF - does not give blanket authority to the President to do what he wants. He can’t, just because he feels like it, shut down this blog, simply because it criticizes the President. He simply doesn’t have the authority to override the First Amendment. The Constitution spells out that the Legislative branch should define the general rules governing the armed forces. Thus, it is up to Congress to decide whether or not the NSA wiretapping program is acceptable or not. Along with Orin Kerr, I agree that the Fourth Amendment probably does not prohibit warrantless wiretapping of calls between foreign and domestic sources. However, as Kerr emphasizes, the FISA law is an appropriate Congressional response to Supreme Court cases in the 1960s that remanded the wiretap question to Congress.
If FISA is too cumbersome or obsolete with today’s technology then it is encumbent upon Congress to change the law and Bush to demand it. Had Bush demanded a change in the FISA law and Congress refused, then I could see Bush’s argument for circumventing the law. He could say, “Yeah, I overrode FISA because it was irrelevant to today’s war and technology, it stood in the way of effective wiretapping, and Congress wouldn’t do anything about it to change it. If they want to impeach me for it, bring it on.” Instead, Bush has given a weaselly followed-but-not-followed the FISA law script, hoping that nobody would find out about it. Not only did Bush violate the law, he did it dishonestly and dishonorably.
According to the AUMF:
Are you sure? I mean, this is “Chimpy McHitlerburton” we’re talking about. Or did you just get your talking points confused?
During the course of a criminal investigation, police like to get suspects on
the record with statements than impinge on their culpability.
They do this so that lies can be rooted out if the suspect later changes
his story.
Kevin Drum makes an interesting point with regard to this;
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/23/AR2006012300754.html
“Hayden stressed that the program “is not a drift net over Dearborn or Lackawanna or Freemont, grabbing conversations that we then sort out by these alleged keyword searches or data-mining tools or other devices that so-called experts keep talking about. This is targeted and focused.”"
Drum says;
“Administration apologists have argued that the White House couldn’t seek congressional approval for this program because it utilized super advanced technology that we couldn’t risk exposing to al-Qaeda. Even in secret session, they’ve suggested, Congress is a sieve and the bad guys would have found out what we were up to.
But now we know that’s not true. This was just ordinary call monitoring, according to General Hayden, and the only problem was that both FISA and the attorney general required a standard of evidence they couldn’t meet before issuing a warrant. In other words, the only change necessary to make this program legal was an amendment to FISA modifying the circumstances necessary to issue certain kinds of warrants. This would have tipped off terrorists to nothing.”
Sounds like prevarication to me.