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Originally Posted by dc_dux
ace.....if you know what happened, then you know more than Congress.
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I don't believe I have made any claims on this subject that are not public knowledge and have been documented and discussed openly. If I have please correct me. There may be some who still have the belief that the Administration did not violate FISA or abuse his executive power. But I think most people understand what happened and why - if they agree with they why is a different question but we do know the stated explanation.
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So tell me how many US citizens were illegally wiretapped and what test of "reasonble cause" was used to justify such action (FISA requires that this information be provided to Congress on a quarterly or semi-annual basis)
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I don't know the number. I don't want to know the number because I don't want the information made public. I still believe it is a national security issue.
Agree or not, the reasonable cause in my opinion is "communications with known terrorists". I think it reasonable to "spy" on people who are communicating with known terrorists. In my view Bush should not have given authorization for this kind of "spying" unilaterally. However, I may have done the same as he did given the circumstances. Hindsight is 20/20.
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Tell me...what is the legal basis for keeping it secret?
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It is no longer secret, I am not sure how the illegal "spying" was made public.
The motivation to keep the program secret was to make known terrorists think they could freely communicate.
I think the media played an important role in brining this to light.
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And tell me the specific legal argument used by the Administration that gives the president the unilateral power to bypass existing laws...and not just that the 2001 Use of Force Resolution provided the legal authorization (there must be some language in that resolution that the WH believed provided this extraordinary presidential power).
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The President has no such authority. I have stated that I think the President broke the FISA law. Again the question facing us now is what do we do about it? In my view, we fix the law and move on. Some believe punitive action should be taken, I respect that view, I just don't agree with it.
But more directly answering your question, One of the links pointed out the legal arguments used by the Bush administration. I thought those arguments were pretty weak.
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And the most important question of all:Since the passage of the 2001 Use of Force resolution by Congress, has Bush invoked this alleged presidential authority under the resolution in order to undertake or authorize any other activities beyond warrantless wiretapping of American citizens. ace....do you know the answer to this question?
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No. If Congress wants to investigate that question, they should. But you do realize it is a different question, don't you?
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Do you think Congress has the right to know if the WH is conducting other illegal activities based on its own interpretation of presidential powers?
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Yes.
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Now that is a real leap of faith! 
Based on what, I cant imagine....particularly in light of the WH destruction of millions of e-mails, Bush's EO to effectively nullify the Presidential Records Act, unprecedented claims of Executive Privilege in conversations/documents not directly involving the Pres, WH blocking DoJ internal investigations by denying security clearances to DoJ investigators, etc.
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Perhaps the Presidential Records act is un-Contitutional, I don't know. But if I believed it was, and I were President, I would destroy records as much as I wanted until I was challenged on the issue.
Checks and balances is not a passive activity. Perhaps Congress should investigate things like this rather than what was in the needle of what a trainer may of or may not of stuck in someone's a$$ - don't you agree?