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Banned
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Rest easy.....John McCain as "law abiding" president was just a brief lapse on his part....what a difference, six months make.... he's fixin' to be a full bore, criminal, "bill of rights" bustin' winger president, meet the new Bush, same as the old Bush:
Candidate McCain, Last December:
Quote:
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/...teQA/McCainQA/
John McCain Q&A
By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff | December 20, 2007
1. Does the president have inherent powers under the Constitution to conduct surveillance for national security purposes without judicial warrants, regardless of federal statutes?
There are some areas where the statutes don’t apply, such as in the surveillance of overseas communications. Where they do apply, however, I think that presidents have the obligation to obey and enforce laws that are passed by Congress and signed into law by the president, no matter what the situation is.
Okay, so is that a no, in other words, federal statute trumps inherent power in that case, warrantless surveillance?
I don't think the president has the right to disobey any law.
2. In what circumstances, if any, would the president have constitutional authority to bomb Iran without seeking a use-of-force authorization from Congress? And specifically, I'm thinking about non-imminent threat situations.
Well he doesn't. But if there is an imminent threat, the president has to act in America's security interest.
But in terms of a strategic bombing, where nothing is going to happen tomorrow or next week, then he's got to go to Congress?
He should, absent an imminent threat. But in the event of an imminent threat, the President has a constitutional obligation to protect the American people.
3. Does the Constitution empower the president to disregard a congressional statute limiting the deployment of troops -- either by capping the number of troops that may be deployed to a particular country or by setting minimum home-stays between deployments? Is that beyond Congress' authority?
It's beyond Congress's authority to micromanage wars. Congress has the power of the purse and the power to declare wars; the President is responsible for leading the armed forces as Commander in Chief.
4. Under what circumstances, if any, would you sign a bill into law but also issue a signing statement reserving a constitutional right to bypass the law?
As President, I won’t have signing statements. I will either sign or veto any legislation that comes across my desk..
5. Does the Constitution permit a president to detain US citizens without charges as unlawful enemy combatants?
The Supreme Court ruled in 2004 that, under the Congressional authorization of the use of force, the U.S. can hold even American citizens under the law of war if they are enemy combatants. But the Court also said that U.S. citizens must have due process to challenge their detention. And I think that is very important when it comes to American citizens.
6. Does executive privilege cover testimony or documents about decision-making within the executive branch not involving confidential advice communicated directly to the president himself?
Yes, the law recognizes a “deliberative process” type of executive privilege that is broader than direct communications to the President. So while we should not do anything to inhibit the communications between a president and his advisers, as President I will do my utmost to accommodate Congressional requests for information.
7. If Congress defines a specific interrogation technique as prohibited under all circumstances, does the president's authority as commander in chief ever permit him to instruct his subordinates to employ that technique despite the statute?
No. Article I, Section 8 gives Congress that power. Unless the president chooses to willfully violate the law and suffer the consequences, he must obey the law.
8. Under what circumstances, if any, is the president, when operating overseas as commander-in-chief, free to disregard international human rights treaties that the US Senate has ratified?
I know of no circumstance. Again, it goes back to what the law says – if there is a treaty that the Congress has ratified, we have chosen to make it the law of the land, and it must be obeyed under the terms that it was ratified.
9. Do you agree or disagree with the statement made by former Attorney General Gonzales in January 2007 that nothing in the Constitution confers an affirmative right to habeas corpus, separate from any statutory habeas rights Congress might grant or take away?
On that one, the Supreme Court just heard oral arguments in the Boumedienne case and it is expected to rule early next year on that question. So I will be interested in seeing how the Court rules.
10. Is there any executive power the Bush administration has claimed or exercised that you think is unconstitutional? Anything you think is simply a bad idea?
McCain declined to answer this question.
11. Who are your campaign's advisers for legal issues?
McCain declined to answer this question.
12. Do you think it is important for all would-be presidents to answer questions like these before voters decide which one to entrust with the powers of the presidency? What would you say about any rival candidate who refuses to answer such questions?
I agree. These are part of the judgment that the American people need.
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Even just a week ago, McCain was represented as a candidate who still wanted to follow the law, to hold those who appeared to have broken the law, accountable:
Quote:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...052802967.html
For McCain, A Switch On Telecom Immunity?
Recent Statements Signal Deeper Privacy Concerns
By Jonathan Weisman and Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, May 29, 2008; A06
A top lawyer for Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign said telecommunications companies should be forced to explain their role in the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance program as a condition for legal immunity for past wiretapping, a statement that stands in marked contrast to positions taken by President Bush, McCain and other Republicans in Congress.
"There would need to be hearings, real hearings, to find out what actually happened, what harms actually occurred, rather than some sort of sweeping of things under the rug," Chuck Fish, a former vice president and chief patent counsel at Time Warner, said last week at the Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference in New Haven, Conn., according to an audiotape available on the conference Web site. "That would be absolutely verboten in a McCain administration."
The comments -- first noted last week on the blog of the technology magazine Wired -- contradict McCain's voting record, and they are almost certain to disrupt negotiations between Democratic leaders in Congress and Bush administration officials, who are seeking blanket immunity for the telecoms' cooperation with the surveillance program.
At issue is the administration's program to intercept phone calls and e-mails of suspected terrorists without a warrant from the secret federal court that has overseen domestic spying since the 1970s. The biggest telecom carriers in the nation participated in the program before it came to light and have since been deluged by nearly 40 lawsuits from customers claiming their privacy rights were violated.
Bush and congressional Republicans are trying to resurrect warrantless surveillance legislation, which lapsed in March, albeit under somewhat stricter supervision. But the administration argues that phone companies will participate only if they receive blanket immunity not only for future surveillance but for cooperation that started after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Supporters of immunity say the companies acted in good faith that their assistance was lawful.
In February, when the issue reached the Senate, McCain voted repeatedly against failed Democratic efforts to strip out the legislation's retroactive immunity provisions or limit the surveillance program's reach. He then voted for the bill's passage.
Fish's comments and the campaign's responses indicate that McCain appears to be taking a new stance that undermines the GOP's negotiating position, as well as the party's efforts to label Democrats as weak on terrorism.
Doug Holtz-Eakin, McCain's senior policy adviser, said Fish was sent to the conference to represent McCain's position, which he did. "Senator McCain supported and voted for immunity for the past actions of the telecommunications companies, but going forward, he does not want them put into this position again," he said.
"Most important in all of this, there must be clear guidelines for their participation and sufficient vetting," a point Fish was trying to make, Holtz-Eakin said.
But Democrats and privacy advocates see a stark change of position. McCain was one of 41 senators to vote against an amendment to make the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act the exclusive means for electronic surveillance in this country, an amendment offered to provide the clarity McCain says he wants, Democratic aides say. The amendment failed to get the 60 votes needed for passage.
"If that's his view today, he had a chance to back it up in recent votes on the Senate floor, and he did not," said David Carle, spokesman for Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.).
"Everything that Senator McCain's aide has said is fully consistent with what we've said," said Caroline Fredrickson, Washington office director of the American Civil Liberties Union. "The Republican position on the Hill has been the absolute opposite."
Jim Manley, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), said he hopes McCain will pressure Bush "to back down from his untenable position so we can negotiate a bill as quickly as possible."
In his comments, Fish said that "there would probably be three things that would matter in a McCain administration."
"The first thing is, it would need to be explicit that we're not talking about something like granting indulgences," which he dismissed as "forgiveness without repentance."
Congress would need to hold hearings, Fish said, adding that "Congress would need to provide clear rules so that we would be certain that private records would be protected in the future."
The McCain campaign last week issued a statement, largely to the telecommunications firms themselves, seeking to clarify Fish's remarks. But the clarification merely added new complications for Republican negotiators because it still implied misdeeds by the telecoms.
"The granting of retroactive immunity supports the continuing efforts of participating companies yet should be done with explicit statements that this is not a blessing for future activities," the statement says.
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By the other day, the old, "I will obey the law as president", was gone:
Quote:
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q...RkZGM=%3E#more
June 2, 2008 1:35 PM
Lead, Senator
The McCain campaign reassures on surveillance reform, but …
By Andrew C. McCarthy
There is much about which to be encouraged in the posted response by McCain spokesman Doug Holtz-Eakin to questions about surveillance reform that I raised last week. I’m grateful that he took the time to pen such a thoughtful answer.
By his account, it certainly appears that the McCain campaign was done an injustice by the Washington Post’s suggestion that the senator was flip-flopping on legal immunity for the telecoms. (The campaign did not help itself by entrusting a surrogate who did not grasp the senator’s position.) The House Democrats’ refusal to agree to immunity — i.e., their elevation of the financial interests of their trial-lawyer patrons over the public interest of Americans in aggressive intelligence collection against those at war with us — is the pivotal dispute delaying reauthorization of foreign-surveillance authority that passed the Senate with overwhelmingly bipartisan support (but is opposed by Senators Obama and Clinton).
The McCain campaign is unequivocally telling “Corner” readers that the senator supports the Senate bill, that he believes the telecoms acted appropriately in acquiescing in government requests for cooperation after the 9/11 attacks, and that no further hearings are necessary to get to the bottom of what happened given the searching congressional investigations that have already occurred.
The most interesting and, I’d submit, the most significant part of the McCain campaign’s response involves presidential power under Article II of the Constitution.
I pointedly asked whether Sen. McCain has changed his position about the lawfulness of President Bush’s warrantless surveillance initiative, ordered in the emergency wartime conditions that followed atrocities in which nearly 3000 Americans were killed and the seat of our military was targeted (as, probably, was the White House or the Capitol). McCain’s original comments when the New York Times exposed the top-secret program indicated a belief that the program was illegal because it did not comply with the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which requires a federal judge, rather than the commander-in-chief, to authorize monitoring.
The campaign declined to answer my question directly. Nevertheless, its response implicitly shows Sen. McCain’s thinking has changed as time has gone on and he has educated himself on this issue. The campaign now says (all italics below are mine):
[N]either the Administration nor the telecoms need apologize for actions that most people, except for the ACLU and the trial lawyers, understand were Constitutional and appropriate in the wake of the attacks on September 11, 2001.
Further, the McCain spokesman elaborates:
We do not know what lies ahead in our nation’s fight against radical Islamic extremists, but John McCain will do everything he can to protect Americans from such threats, including asking the telecoms for appropriate assistance to collect intelligence against foreign threats to the United States as authorized by Article II of the Constitution.
This is exactly right. It doesn’t mean Sen. McCain has lost his regard for FISA or thinks it’s any less important that we enact legislation that improves it. (And I say that as someone who thinks FISA is a bad law and that the Senate bill, though necessary, is itself a deeply flawed piece of legislation.) It means, as the McCain campaign is saying, that we don’t know what the future will bring. The Framers understood that too — which is why, notwithstanding their deep suspicions of executive power, they created a powerful presidency that could react with dispatch when hostile foreign forces threatened the United States.
I’ve only got one other question for the McCain campaign — more of a plea than a query: Why isn’t Sen. McCain leading on this crucial national-security issue?
This is a home-run waiting to happen. The Democrats, deeply in the thrall of the trial lawyers and Leftists who would prefer to see America vulnerable, are opposing commonsense legislation. Even the awful post-Watergate Congress, in its hostility to executive power, understood that foreign intelligence collection should not be managed by federal judges. Yet, the House Democrats’ position holds that if terrorists in Baghdad kidnap a U.S. Marine, we need to get a federal judge’s permission to authorize eavesdropping as those terrorists contact their confederates in Sadr City … or Tehran.
That’s lunacy. But it’s the Obama position. And it is classically symbolic of how the Democrats’ likely standard-bearer views our national security. McCain should be hammering him on this daily.
Meanwhile, as the stalemate goes on in Congress — and it has now been over three months since the Pelosi Democrats let our foreign surveillance authority lapse — we are hamstrung in our ability to collect intelligence against newly emerging terror cells, under circumstances where (as a 2007 National Intelligence Estimate explained) new cells are emerging all the time.
The Democrat leadership is content to leave us vulnerable. Sensible Democrats know this is a potential disaster — which is why so many of them voted for the Senate bill, and why so many of them are squirming in the House. Nightly, they are no doubt thanking the Almighty (or Mother Earth, or whatever it is that the Left thanks) that the Republican candidate is not riveting the public’s attention to their craven refusal to allow a vote on the Senate bill that everyone knows would pass by a comfortable margin.
President Bush has done what he can do, and has admirably held the line against further compromise on our security. But the brute politics are that he cannot lead on surveillance reform anymore.
Only Senator McCain can do that.
Please.
http://corner.nationalreview.com/pos...Q0MWRiMjM0Y2I=
Monday, June 02, 2008
McCain & FISA: Significant Developments and Opportunities [Andy McCarthy]
I'm grateful to McCain spokesman Doug Holtz-Eakin for his thoughtful answer to the questions on surveillance reform I posted last week.
I've responded in an article on the homepage today. In my humble opinion, the McCain camp's response is extremely significant in that it not only full-throatedly supports the surveillance reform being blocked by House Democrats; it marks a welcome evolution on the Senator's thinking about executive power — bringing him more into line with prior administrations and influential federal court decisions which concede presidential power under Article II of the Constitution to order warrantless surveillance when the United States is threatened.
As I argue (again) today, Sen. McCain's likely opponent and House Democrats — who are elevating the interests of trial lawyers over public safety — are extremely vulnerable on this issue. He should be going after them on it, relentlessly. It's not only good politics — it's the path to needed reform.
06/02 04:03 PM
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Last month's ad campaign, financed by online contributions raised by bloggers, targeted worst offending six of 21 blue dog democratic congressmen who have voted with the white house on telecomm immunity, this is the full page newspaper ad that appeared in Rep. Chris Carney's district:
Quote:
http://stopthepainwhenithink.blogspo...e-factory.html
Telecom immunity and the sausage factory...
This is disgusting. America in the land of hypocrisy and bullshit...
Is it all about the money? Is that all that the much heralded 'American democrasy' has been reduced to? Money and bullshit?
God had better bless America and with not so many idiots and assholes either, and quick!
How telecoms are attempting to buy amnesty from Congress
One of the benefits from the protracted battle over telecom amnesty is that it is a perfect microcosm for how our government institutions work. And a casual review of the available evidence regarding how telecom amnesty is being pursued demonstrates what absurd, irrelevant distractions are the pro-amnesty justifications offered by the pundit class and the Bush administration.
Just in the first three months of 2008, recent lobbyist disclosure statements reveal that AT&T spent $5.2 million in lobbyist fees (putting it well ahead of its 2007 pace, when it spent almost $20 million). In the first quarter of 2008, Verizon spent $4.8 million on lobbyist fees, while Comcast spent $2.6 million. So in the first three months of this year, those three telecoms -- which would be among the biggest beneficiaries of telecom amnesty (right after the White House) -- spent a combined total of almost $13 million on lobbyists. They're on pace to spend more than $50 million on lobbying this year -- just those three companies.
Let's pause for a brief minute to reflect on how ludicrous and deceptive -- laughably so -- are some of the main FISA/telecom claims that are being advanced. We continuously hear, for instance, that these poor, beleaguered telecoms need protection from the big, money-hungry plaintiffs' lawyers driving these "costly" surveillance lawsuits. One of the two organizations leading the litigation against the telecoms (along with the ACLU) is the non-profit group Electronic Frontiers Foundation. Here is what EFF's Kurt Opsahl wrote this week:
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/05...t-quarter-2008
To put this into perspective, AT&T's spending for three months on lobbying alone is significantly more than the entire EFF budget for a whole year, from attorneys to sys admins, pencils to bandwidth.
And then there's the claim -- advanced by the likes of The Washington Post's Fred Hiatt, among others -- that it's a grave injustice to force these telecoms to incur attorneys fees in order to defend themselves against allegations that they broke the law because the litigation is so "costly." Yet here these telecoms are spending $1 million per month or more in order to send former government officials to pressure member of Congress to write the laws the way they want them to be written.
Then there are the specific lobbying arrangements these telecoms have on FISA. AT&T, for instance, paid $120,000 in the first three months of 2008 to the lobbying firm of BSKH & Associates -- the firm of which Charlie Black, top campaign adviser to John McCain, is a founding partner. According to BSKH's lobbyist disclosure form, Charlie Black himself, at the same time he was advising McCain, was one of the individuals paid by AT&T to lobby Congress on FISA. From that disclosure form:
Last year, AT&T paid $400,000 to Black's firm. Black was taking money from AT&T to lobby on FISA and simultaneously advising McCain. McCain, needless to say, voted in favor of granting amnesty to AT&T and the other telecoms at exactly the time that his close adviser, Black, was taking money from AT&T to influence Congress on its behalf. And, of course, AT&T and Verizon are among McCain's top donors.
While we're subjected to all sorts of prattle from our pundit class and political leaders about how telecom amnesty is so urgent if we want to be Safe from the Terrorists, this is the sleaze that fuels how the process works. And the sleaze is spread around in a nice bipartisan way.
In addition to Charlie Black's firm, AT&T -- from January to March -- paid $150,000 to the new lobbying firm (.pdf) formed by former Democratic Sen. John Breaux and GOP Sen. Trent Lott, to lobby on only two issues: FISA and net neutrality. Those fees were for only three individuals -- Breaux, Lott and Lott's former Chief of Staff, Bret Boyles. Newsweek reported last September that the telecoms had hired numerous top officials from both the Bush 41 and Clinton administration to lobby for amnesty. And, as previously reported, contributions from telecom executives to Jay Rockefeller skyrocketed right before he became the key Senator leading the charge for telecom amnesty......
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I invite anyone who would defend McCain's flip flop and the republican talking points in the two National Review quote boxes above.....about the telecomm immunity issue having to do with democrat support for "rich trial lawyers", to do so.....post what you've got.....
Last edited by host; 06-04-2008 at 02:58 AM..
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