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Originally Posted by stevo
how is "anything necessary" vague? Its pretty clear to me. A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G necessary. What congress gave the president following 9/11 was tantamount to a declaration of war. He was given the powers to do whatever he needed to catch people involved in 9/11 and al-qaeda and to prevent any future terrorist attacts. Since they gave him this power "he" can spy on people suspected of having terrorist ties. Not just ordinary americans, but people with suspected ties. You have a problem with our government listening in on calls between suspected al-qaeda in the US and agents outside the US?
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stevo, this is a sequence, in chronological order, of what I "know" about the possibility that Bush has "broken the law". It appears that Bush, himself, in an April 20, 2004 speech where he tried to persuade his audience that the Patriot Act should be strengthened and renewed, and his Atty General nominee, Alberto Gonzales, in his sworn senate commitee testimony on Jan. 6, 2005, while answering questions put to him by Senator Feingold, were both untruthful about ongoing wire-tap policies that they had authorized, and implemented.
Please read these excerpts, or the whole linked pages, and comment about what you disagree with in the excerpts, as well as in my comments above, and why. I want to gain a sense on how far apart our views on this issue actually are, before I post questions about what your comments here. Maybe you have read different reports than I have, and maybe there are things that I am citing here that are new to you.....
Quote:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0040420-2.html
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
April 20, 2004
President Bush: Information Sharing, Patriot Act Vital to Homeland Security
Remarks by the President in a Conversation on the USA Patriot Act
Kleinshans Music Hall
Buffalo, New York
........ So the first thing I want you to think about is, when you hear Patriot Act, is that we changed the law and the
bureaucratic mind-set to allow for the sharing of information. It's vital. And others will describe what that means.
Secondly, there are such things as roving wiretaps. Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking
about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about
chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to
understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to
protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution.
But a roving wiretap means -- it was primarily used for drug lords. A guy, a pretty intelligence drug lord would have a
phone, and in old days they could just get a tap on that phone. So guess what he'd do? He'd get him another phone,
particularly with the advent of the cell phones. And so he'd start changing cell phones, which made it hard for our DEA types
to listen, to run down these guys polluting our streets. And that changed, the law changed on -- roving wiretaps were
available for chasing down drug lords. They weren't available for chasing down terrorists, see? And that didn't make any
sense in the post-9/11 era. If we couldn't use a tool that we're using against mobsters on terrorists, something needed to
happen.
The Patriot Act changed that. So with court order, law enforcement officials can now use what's called roving wiretaps, which
will prevent a terrorist from switching cell phones in order to get a message out to one of his buddies.
Thirdly, to give you an example of what we're talking about, there's something called delayed notification warrants. Those
are very important. I see some people, first responders nodding their heads about what they mean. These are a common tool
used to catch mobsters. In other words, it allows people to collect data before everybody is aware of what's going on. It
requires a court order. It requires protection under the law. We couldn't use these against terrorists, but we could use
against gangs.........
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Quote:
http://www.senate.gov/~feingold/stat...005127955.html
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Hearing on the Nomination of Alberto Gonzales to be U.S. Attorney General
January 6, 2005
SECTION: CAPITOL HILL HEARING
HEADLINE: HEARING OF THE SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE
SUBJECT: NOMINATION OF ALBERTO GONZALES TO BE U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL
FEINGOLD:
.....So what I want to do is press you on that, because I think, perhaps, you've misunderstood the question. And it's an
important one. It goes to a very basic principle of the country, that no one, not even the president of the United States, is
above the law.......
.....The question here is: What is your view regarding the president's constitutional authority to authorize violations of
the criminal law, duly enacted statutes that may have been on the books for many years, when acting as commander in chief?
Does he have such authority? The question you have been asked is not about a hypothetical statute in the future that the
president might think is unconstitutional; it's about our laws and international treaty obligations concerning torture. The
torture memo answered that question in the affirmative. And my colleagues and I would like your answer on that today.
And I also would like you to answer this: Does the president, in your opinion, have the authority, acting as commander in
chief, to authorize warrantless searches of Americans' homes and wiretaps of their conversations in violation of the criminal
and foreign intelligence surveillance statutes of this country?
GONZALES:
Senator, the August 30th memo has been withdrawn. It has been rejected, including that section regarding the commander in
chief authority to ignore the criminal statutes. So it's been rejected by the executive branch. I categorically reject it.
And in addition to that, as I've said repeatedly today, this administration does not engage in torture and will not condone
torture. And so what we're really discussing is a hypothetical situation that...
FEINGOLD:
Judge Gonzales, I've asked a broader question. I'm asking whether, in general, the president has constitutional authority --
does he at least in theory have the authority to authorize violations of the criminal law when there are duly enacted
statutes, simply because he's commander in chief?
FEINGOLD:
Does he have that power?
GONZALES:
Senator, in my judgment, you phrase it as sort of a hypothetical situation. I would have to know what is the national
interest that the president may have to consider.
What I'm saying is, it is impossible to me, based upon the question as you've presented it to me, to answer that question.
I can say is that there is a presumption of constitutionality with respect to any statute passed by Congress. I will take an
oath to defend the statutes.
And to the extent that there is a decision made to ignore a statute, I consider that a very significant decision and one that
I would personally be involved with, I commit to you on that, and one we would take with a great deal of care and
seriousness.
FEINGOLD:
Well, that sounds to me like the president still remains above the law.
GONZALES:
No, sir.
FEINGOLD:
You know, if this is something where you take a good look at it, you give a presumption that the president ought to follow
the law, to me, that's not good enough under our system of government.
GONZALES:
Senator, if I might respond to that, the president is not above the law. Of course he is not above the law.
But he has an obligation too. He takes an oath as well. And if Congress passes a law that is unconstitutional, there is a
practice and a tradition recognized by presidents of both parties that he may elect to decide not to enforce that law. Now I
think that that would be...
FEINGOLD:
I recognized and I tried to make that distinction, Judge, between electing not to enforce as opposed to affirmatively telling
people they can do certain things in contravention of the law.
GONZALES:
Senator, this president is not -- it's not the policy or the agenda of this president to authorize actions that would be in
contravention of our criminal statutes.
FEINGOLD:
Finally, will you commit to notify Congress if the president makes this type of decision and not wait two years until a memo
is leaked about it?
GONZALES:
I will commit to advise the Congress as soon as I legally can, yes, sir.
FEINGOLD:
Well, I hope that would be a very brief period of time. And I thank you again, Judge Gonzales.
GONZALES:
Thank you, Senator.
FEINGOLD:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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Quote:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/16/po...16program.html
Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts
By JAMES RISEN and ERIC LICHTBLAU
Published: December 16, 2005
WASHINGTON, Dec. 15 - Months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to
eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the
court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials.
In 2002, President Bush toured the National Security Agency at Fort Meade, Md., with Lt. Gen. Michael V. Hayden, who was then
the agency's director and is now a full general and the principal deputy director of national intelligence.
Under a presidential order signed in 2002, the intelligence agency has monitored the international telephone calls and
international e-mail messages of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people inside the United States without warrants over the
past three years in an effort to track possible "dirty numbers" linked to Al Qaeda, the officials said. The agency, they
said, still seeks warrants to monitor entirely domestic communications.
The previously undisclosed decision to permit some eavesdropping inside the country without court approval was a major shift
in American intelligence-gathering practices, particularly for the National Security Agency, whose mission is to spy on
communications abroad. As a result, some officials familiar with the continuing operation have questioned whether the
surveillance has stretched, if not crossed, constitutional limits on legal searches....
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Quote:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea.../20051217.html
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
December 17, 2005
President's Radio Address
......To fight the war on terror, I am using authority vested in me by Congress, including the Joint Authorization for Use of
Military Force, which passed overwhelmingly in the first week after September the 11th. I'm also using constitutional
authority vested in me as Commander-in-Chief.
In the weeks following the terrorist attacks on our nation, I authorized the National Security Agency, consistent with U.S.
law and the Constitution, to intercept the international communications of people with known links to al Qaeda and related
terrorist organizations. Before we intercept these communications, the government must have information that establishes a
clear link to these terrorist networks.
This is a highly classified program that is crucial to our national security. Its purpose is to detect and prevent terrorist
attacks against the United States, our friends and allies. Yesterday the existence of this secret program was revealed in
media reports, after being improperly provided to news organizations........
....The authorization I gave the National Security Agency after September the 11th helped address that problem in a way that
is fully consistent with my constitutional responsibilities and authorities. The activities I have authorized make it more
likely that killers like these 9/11 hijackers will be identified and located in time. And the activities conducted under this
authorization have helped detect and prevent possible terrorist attacks in the United States and abroad.
The activities I authorized are reviewed approximately every 45 days. Each review is based on a fresh intelligence assessment
of terrorist threats to the continuity of our government and the threat of catastrophic damage to our homeland. During each
assessment, previous activities under the authorization are reviewed. The review includes approval by our nation's top legal
officials, including the Attorney General and the Counsel to the President. I have reauthorized this program more than 30
times since the September the 11th attacks, and I intend to do so for as long as our nation faces a continuing threat from al
Qaeda and related groups......
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Quote:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0051219-2.html
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
December 19, 2005
Press Conference of the President
The East Room
......Q It was, why did you skip the basic safeguards of asking courts for permission for the intercepts?
THE PRESIDENT: First of all, I -- right after September the 11th, I knew we were fighting a different kind of war. And so I asked people in my administration to analyze how best for me and our government to do the job people expect us to do, which is to detect and prevent a possible attack. That's what the American people want. We looked at the possible scenarios. And the people responsible for helping us protect and defend came forth with the current program, because it enables us to move faster and quicker. And that's important. We've got to be fast on our feet, quick to detect and prevent.
We use FISA still -- you're referring to the FISA court in your question -- of course, we use FISAs. But FISA is for long-term monitoring. What is needed in order to protect the American people is the ability to move quickly to detect.
Now, having suggested this idea, I then, obviously, went to the question, is it legal to do so? I am -- I swore to uphold the laws. Do I have the legal authority to do this? And the answer is, absolutely. As I mentioned in my remarks, the legal authority is derived from the Constitution, as well as the authorization of force by the United States Congress.....
......Q -- why, in the four years since 9/11, has your administration not sought to get changes in the law instead of bypassing it, as some of your critics have said?
THE PRESIDENT: I appreciate that. First, I want to make clear to the people listening that this program is limited in nature to those that are known al Qaeda ties and/or affiliates. That's important. So it's a program that's limited, and you brought up something that I want to stress, and that is, is that these calls are not intercepted within the country. They are from outside the country to in the country, or vice versa. So in other words, this is not a -- if you're calling from Houston to L.A., that call is not monitored. And if there was ever any need to monitor, there would be a process to do that.
I think I've got the authority to move forward, Kelly. I mean, this is what -- and the Attorney General was out briefing this morning about why it's legal to make the decisions I'm making. I can fully understand why members of Congress are expressing concerns about civil liberties. I know that. And it's -- I share the same concerns. I want to make sure the American people understand, however, that we have an obligation to protect you, and we're doing that and, at the same time, protecting your civil liberties.
Secondly, an open debate about law would say to the enemy, here is what we're going to do. And this is an enemy which adjusts. We monitor this program carefully. We have consulted with members of the Congress over a dozen times. We are constantly reviewing the program. Those of us who review the program have a duty to uphold the laws of the United States, and we take that duty very seriously..........
....Q Thank you, Mr. President. I wonder if you can tell us today, sir, what, if any, limits you believe there are or should be on the powers of a President during a war, at wartime? And if the global war on terror is going to last for decades, as has been forecast, does that mean that we're going to see, therefore, a more or less permanent expansion of the unchecked power of the executive in American society?
THE PRESIDENT: First of all, I disagree with your assertion of "unchecked power."
Q Well --
THE PRESIDENT: Hold on a second, please. There is the check of people being sworn to uphold the law, for starters. There is oversight. We're talking to Congress all the time, and on this program, to suggest there's unchecked power is not listening to what I'm telling you. I'm telling you, we have briefed the United States Congress on this program a dozen times.
This is an awesome responsibility to make decisions on behalf of the American people, and I understand that, Peter. And we'll continue to work with the Congress, as well as people within our own administration, to constantly monitor programs such as the one I described to you, to make sure that we're protecting the civil liberties of the United States. To say "unchecked power" basically is ascribing some kind of dictatorial position to the President, which I strongly reject.
Q What limits do you --
THE PRESIDENT: I just described limits on this particular program, Peter. And that's what's important for the American people to understand. I am doing what you expect me to do, and at the same time, safeguarding the civil liberties of the country...
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Quote:
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/10536559/site/newsweek/
Column/Between The Lines
Jonathan Alter
Bush’s Snoopgate
The president was so desperate to kill The New York Times’ eavesdropping story, he summoned the paper’s editor and publisher
to the Oval Office. But it wasn’t just out of concern about national security.
WEB-EXCLUSIVE COMMENTARY
By Jonathan Alter
Newsweek
Updated: 6:17 p.m. ET Dec. 19, 2005
.......No wonder Bush was so desperate that The New York Times not publish its story on the National Security Agency
eavesdropping on American citizens without a warrant, in what lawyers outside the administration say is a clear violation of
the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. I learned this week that on December 6, Bush summoned Times publisher Arthur
Sulzberger and executive editor Bill Keller to the Oval Office in a futile attempt to talk them out of running the story. The
Times will not comment on the meeting,
but one can only imagine the president’s desperation.
The problem was not that the disclosures would compromise national security, as Bush claimed at his press conference. His
comparison to the damaging pre-9/11 revelation of Osama bin Laden’s use of a satellite phone, which caused bin Laden to
change tactics, is fallacious; any Americans with ties to Muslim extremists—in fact, all American Muslims, period—have long
since suspected that the U.S. government might be listening in to their conversations. Bush claimed that “the fact that we
are discussing this program is helping the enemy.” But there is simply no evidence, or even reasonable presumption, that this
is so. And rather than the leaking being a “shameful act,” it was the work of a patriot inside the government who was trying
to stop a presidential power grab.
No, Bush was desperate to keep the Times from running this important story—which the paper had already inexplicably held for
a year—because he knew that it would reveal him as a law-breaker. He insists he had “legal authority derived from the
Constitution and congressional resolution authorizing force.” But the Constitution explicitly requires the president to obey
the law. And the post 9/11 congressional resolution authorizing “all necessary force” in fighting terrorism was made in clear
reference to military intervention. It did not scrap the Constitution and allow the president to do whatever he pleased in
any area in the name of fighting terrorism.......
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Last edited by host; 12-20-2005 at 10:43 PM..
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