February 02, 2006

Kafka!

Just so we're clear on this: the legal justifications for the secret/classified NSA warrantless wiretapping program are, themselves, secret and classified.

Or, in other words, "What the NSA is doing is legal and constitutional, but we can't tell you why."

I swear this whole thing gets stranger every day.

(Oh, and by the way, Bush's energy plan - the one from 36 hours ago - is already dead on arrival. It seems that alternative fuels have no real political support in Congress, and the Saudi's are annoyed at Bush for trying to buy less oil from them. Shouldn't a plan put forth by the President of the United States last longer than a snowball in hell?

Posted by baltar at February 2, 2006 08:14 AM | TrackBack | Posted to The Ever Shrinking Constitution


Comments

The tell-all books out of this administration are going to be a hoot, assuming that Our Vaunted National Security Apparatus doesn't impound them all.

Posted by: jacflash at February 2, 2006 09:25 AM | PERMALINK

THIS, it seems to me, is what the Democrats need to be saying: that the warrantless wiretaps threaten our democracy because they are entirely inscrutable and rely on the executive saying "trust me." Some one (please god not John Kerry) needs to make the case clearly that no president or administration can be allowed to say "trust me" in the face of clear evidence that the law has been skirted.

In other words, the point isn't that the pres is trying to keep us safe, but that mechanisms not subject to the rule of law are simply off limits as tools to keep us safe, because they endanger the democracy.

Why don't I hear any dems saying THAT?

Posted by: arbitransom at February 2, 2006 09:37 AM | PERMALINK

No, I don't hear any Dems saying that (very simple) line. I'd wonder why. It's not like the opposition to Bush's NSA wiretapping is pro-terrorist, they just like laws. Why this is controversial is beyond me.

Any yes, the histories and biographies coming out of this admin (in a few years time) should be very, very interesting.

Posted by: baltar at February 2, 2006 09:51 AM | PERMALINK

Even Grover Norquist is saying the wiretapping broke the law.

Posted by: binky at February 2, 2006 09:53 AM | PERMALINK

Secretary of the Treasury Paul O'Neill's was already pretty interesting as was of, of course, anti-terrorism coordinator Richard Clarke's - if by interesting one means seriously fucking disturbing given that this team has 3 more years in office.

Posted by: Armand at February 2, 2006 10:02 AM | PERMALINK

Al Gore:

As we begin this new year, the Executive Branch of our government has been caught eavesdropping on huge numbers of American citizens and has brazenly declared that it has the unilateral right to continue without regard to the established law enacted by Congress to prevent such abuses.

It is imperative that respect for the rule of law be restored.

* * *

[T]he Executive Branch has been secretly spying on large numbers of Americans for the last four years and eavesdropping on "large volumes of telephone calls, e-mail messages, and other Internet traffic inside the United States." The New York Times reported that the President decided to launch this massive eavesdropping program "without search warrants or any new laws that would permit such domestic intelligence collection."

During the period when this eavesdropping was still secret, the President went out of his way to reassure the American people on more than one occasion that, of course, judicial permission is required for any government spying on American citizens and that, of course, these constitutional safeguards were still in place.

But surprisingly, the President's soothing statements turned out to be false. Moreover, as soon as this massive domestic spying program was uncovered by the press, the President not only confirmed that the story was true, but also declared that he has no intention of bringing these wholesale invasions of privacy to an end.

At present, we still have much to learn about the NSA's domestic surveillance. What we do know about this pervasive wiretapping virtually compels the conclusion that the President of the United States has been breaking the law repeatedly and persistently.

A president who breaks the law is a threat to the very structure of our government. Our Founding Fathers were adamant that they had established a government of laws and not men. Indeed, they recognized that the structure of government they had enshrined in our Constitution - our system of checks and balances - was designed with a central purpose of ensuring that it would govern through the rule of law. As John Adams said: "The executive shall never exercise the legislative and judicial powers, or either of them, to the end that it may be a government of laws and not of men."

An executive who arrogates to himself the power to ignore the legitimate legislative directives of the Congress or to act free of the check of the judiciary becomes the central threat that the Founders sought to nullify in the Constitution - an all-powerful executive too reminiscent of the King from whom they had broken free. In the words of James Madison, "the accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny."

* * *

When President Bush failed to convince Congress to give him all the power he wanted when they passed the [Authorization for the Use of Military Force], he secretly assumed that power anyway, as if congressional authorization was a useless bother. But as Justice Frankfurter once wrote: "To find authority so explicitly withheld is not merely to disregard in a particular instance the clear will of Congress. It is to disrespect the whole legislative process and the constitutional division of authority between President and Congress."

* * *

[W]e are told by the Administration that the war footing upon which he has tried to place the country is going to "last for the rest of our lives." So we are told that the conditions of national threat that have been used by other Presidents to justify arrogations of power will persist in near perpetuity.


* * *

The President's decision to ignore FISA was a direct assault on the power of the judges who sit on that court. Congress established the FISA court precisely to be a check on executive power to wiretap. Yet, to ensure that the court could not function as a check on executive power, the President simply did not take matters to it and did not let the court know that it was being bypassed.

* * *

We have a duty as Americans to defend our citizens' right not only to life but also to liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It is therefore vital in our current circumstances that immediate steps be taken to safeguard our Constitution against the present danger posed by the intrusive overreaching on the part of the Executive Branch and the President's apparent belief that he need not live under the rule of law.

I endorse the words of Bob Barr, when he said, "The President has dared the American people to do something about it. For the sake of the Constitution, I hope they will."

A special counsel should immediately be appointed by the Attorney General to remedy the obvious conflict of interest that prevents him from investigating what many believe are serious violations of law by the President.

You know, just for argument's sake.

Posted by: moon at February 2, 2006 10:16 AM | PERMALINK

Binky, dear, Norquist is a (small-l) libertarian, not a wingnut. Not many libertarians are defending this band of geniuses these days.

Baltar, we should make some predictions about those revelations at some point.

Posted by: jacflash at February 2, 2006 10:21 AM | PERMALINK

Apropos of not very much, it is deeply amusing to hear Al Gore say "I endorse the words of Bob Barr" in any context, no?

Posted by: jacflash at February 2, 2006 10:24 AM | PERMALINK

Did I say Norquist was a wingnut?

He and his ideas (the whole K street deal) have been closely associated with the administration.

It's the connect-i-ness not the wing-i-ness.

Posted by: binky at February 2, 2006 11:34 AM | PERMALINK

If Gore endoring Barr doesn't cause both of them to burst into flame, I don't know what does.

I predict that (when this all comes out) Bush will be portrayed as a fairly clueless President who didn't know what all his underlings were up to. I don't think Cheney will come out looking very well at all.

Posted by: baltar at February 2, 2006 11:35 AM | PERMALINK

Did someone say clueless President who didn't know what all his underlings were up to?

Nod to the StealthBadger, btw.

Posted by: binky at February 2, 2006 11:46 AM | PERMALINK

Baltar - Ever give much thought to all the harm that might not have occurred if Bush had picked Marc Racicot for Veep instead of giving Cheney unbridled power? It's a really depressing thought that crosses my mind most days.

Posted by: Armand at February 2, 2006 12:36 PM | PERMALINK

Bush didn't pick Cheney, as VP; don't you remember? Cheney picked Cheney as VP - he was head of the search committee.

Posted by: baltar at February 2, 2006 03:56 PM | PERMALINK
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