Senator Graham on NSA leak and Bush's responsibility

http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/face_121805.pdf

This morning on FACE THE NATION Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said the following about the NSA eavesdropping, the President's responsibility, and what it means for democracy. Senator Graham was on with Senator Joe Biden (D-DE), Bob Schieffer and Tom Friedman.

Sen. GRAHAM: Here's what I reject. Whether you're a Republican or a Democrat in the White House, I reject the ability of any president during a time of war to make findings to set aside the torture statute and give blanket immunity to people out in the field because that could come back and hurt our own troops in different scenarios. I reject the idea that any president can sit down with a handful of congressman and deal the courts out if the law requires the court to be involved. It is about the process. It's not about the politics. It is about winning the war, adhering to the values that we're fighting for and you can't set those values aside in the name of expediency.

<skip>

Sen. GRAHAM: I want to see the statute. I want to see the executive order. Whatever legal authority was used, I want someone to explain to me how it justified not going to a court that was set up for this very purpose. And there may be reason and we are at war and I applaud the president for being aggressive. But we cannot set aside the rule of law in a time of war because that's what we're fighting for in Iraq, for them to follow the law, not an outcome. I don't want an outcome-based process in Iraq. I want something they've never had-- protections for everybody.

Graham at least credit for using the term " rule of law"....As he sooooooooooooooo used in the Clinton fellatio case.

Jr refused to say which say they were following (Bush said he was following the law). Levin said he did not know if this is the law but many are citing it.

http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/doj/fisa /

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 prescribes procedures for requesting judicial authorization for electronic surveillance and physical search of persons engaged in espionage or international terrorism against the United States on behalf of a foreign power.

Requests are adjudicated by a special eleven member court called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

FISA Annual Reports to Congress

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court -- 2005 Membership

Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004: “Lone Wolf” Amendment to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, December 29, 2004

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act: An Overview of the Statutory Framework and Recent Judicial Decisions, Congressional Research Service, 2004.......more......

I heard many times during my youth, "ignorance of the law is not a defense" That said I am not a lawyer but it seems to me W has broken his oath to support and defend the constitution. While the talk of Impeachment makes me giddy, the actual reality is that it rarely ever succeeds in removing a pol from office.
http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h231.htm

one said anything about 'domestic' spying.

http://warandpiece.com /
December 18, 2005
Unprecedented Domestic Surveillance. Barton Gellman and Dafna Linzer:

......A high-ranking intelligence official with firsthand knowledge said in an interview yesterday that Vice President Cheney, then-Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet and Michael V. Hayden, then a lieutenant general and director of the National Security Agency, briefed four key members of Congress about the NSA's new domestic surveillance on Oct. 25, 2001, and Nov. 14, 2001, shortly after Bush signed a highly classified directive that eliminated some restrictions on eavesdropping against U.S. citizens and permanent residents.

In describing the briefings, administration officials made clear that Cheney was announcing a decision, not asking permission from Congress. How much the legislators learned is in dispute.

Former senator Bob Graham (D-Fla.), who chaired the Senate intelligence committee and is the only participant thus far to describe the meetings extensively and on the record, said in interviews Friday night and yesterday that he remembers "no discussion about expanding to include conversations of U.S. citizens or conversations that originated or ended in the United States" -- and no mention of the president's intent to bypass the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. ...

Graham said the latest disclosures suggest that the president decided to go "beyond foreign communications to using this as a pretext for listening to U.S. citizens' communications. There was no discussion of anything like that in the meeting with Cheney.".............

Even when Bush finally admitted the spying, he spread a monumental lie that Congress had authorized it many times.

From the OPs link:

"Sen. GRAHAM: Well, number one, we have to resolve this issue to build confidence in the American people
that we're a nation of laws, not outcomes. So having hearings I think is appropriate. To have a public hearing
maybe is not appropriate. I would like to see the Intelligence Committee and other people who are the
appropriate folks to provide oversight look into it."

She got that one right.

to bolster the confidence of the American people, only the confidence of those Americans at the hearing.

So talking about "secret hearings" has the opposite effect. Edited to add: Secret hearings(?) for oversight on secret spying(?), for oversight into a secretive White House, for insight into the shadow secret government(?).

Too many secrets.

information.

Was that there would be no accountability on who they spied on
and why they spied on them.
The courts separate these actions from being a police state.

So who has Rove been tapping and why? Why would a judge
refuse to grant his request? And why would Rove want no trail?
This has Rove's fingerprints all over it.

If you check his history and his position of authority at the time

What do you think Bolton was doing and why?
And who was Bolton reporting to at the time?

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/_/2005/05/on_whom_was_john_bolton_eavesdropping.php

http://www.nogw.com/download/2005_rovegate_boltongate.pdf

http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/972

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/plamegate-the-john-bolto_b_7648.html

Unless you want to watch the monkey on a string lie again, but within these links are
enough information for you to see the connection.:)

The role of the Gestapo was to investigate and combat "all tendencies dangerous to the State." It had the authority to investigate treason, espionage and sabotage cases, and cases of criminal attacks on the Nazi Party and on Germany.

The law had been changed in such a way that the Gestapo's actions were not subject to judicial review. Nazi jurist Dr. Werner Best stated, "As long as the ... carries out the will of the leadership, it is acting legally." The Gestapo was specifically exempted from responsibility to administrative courts, where citizens normally could sue the state to conform to laws.

The power of the Gestapo most open to misuse was "Schutzhaft" or "protective custody" — a euphemism for the power to imprison people without judicial proceedings, typically in concentration camps. The person imprisoned even had to sign his or her own Schutzhaftbefehl, the document declaring that the person desired to be imprisoned. Normally this signature was forced by beatings and torture.

Wikepedia...

Does this sound familiar

and the insignia of the Gestapo
Skull and Bones...

we are here people... Graham knows it... its one thing to be playing at it but its another thing to see the reality...

otherwise you are just a partisan hypocrite

We cannot deal the courts out of our laws if we want to maintain the principles upon which this country stands. There needs to be an investigation to determine why the President decided to avoid the constitutional means of investigation.

It's hypocritical that Graham also wants to strip detainees of access to the courts.

that brings him a wee bit uncomfortable...

.

It's cold and snowy. (It is in Hell, Michigan)

I more then agree with Graham on this and torture, I can't help but admire him. He speaks with intelligence and a quiet passion and he doesn't sway...or get hysterical.

I hate admiring someone I don't like on so many other issues.

It must be the JAG officer in him but he is a great spokesman on these two items. Much better then McCain. Weasel McCain is right on torture but he does weasel and doesn't show the intelligence and eloquence that Graham has.

So hell has frozen over. I find Graham awesome on these two issues.

he KNEW the judges wouldn't give him permission to secretly bug anti-war protesters and members of the Democratic Party.

He thinks he is above everything and cannot be touched. His recent actions in defending his criminal behavior begs the question: What other laws has he broken that still remain a secret?

This time there is no "getting to the bottom of the investigation." He did it. This makes me ill, because I know this is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. "All's fair in love and war" is his mantra. We're at war, he says, and he is in love with power.

that he has done and his allies too. NGU!

:toast:

:toast: I will NGU!

tell me what that waterboy for the Invasion of Iraq, tommy friedman, had to say on this latest Impeachable Offense of bush's?

:kick:

Surely many of them will no longer march in lock-step....what is it going to take to wake them up?