Bush's NSA Hubris

Matthew Rothschild
(snip)
Here the Justice Department shows just how unlimited it believes that power is.
“The President has inherent constitutional authority to conduct warrantless searches and surveillance within the United States for foreign intelligence purposes,” the Justice Department asserts. It says there is a “serious constitutional” question as to whether such spying “is such a core exercise of Commander in Chief control over the Armed Forces during armed conflict that Congress cannot interfere with it at all.” Clearly, the Justice Department believes that to be the case. “The NSA activities lie at the very core of the Commander in Chief power,” it states. This is especially true in wartime, it argues. But get this: The Justice Department thinks the President may be able to spy on us without warrants even when there is no war!

(snip)
“Even outside the context of wartime surveillance of the enemy, the source and scope of Congress’s power to restrict the President’s inherent authority to conduct foreign intelligence is unclear,” it states. “The President’s role as sole organ for the Nation in foreign affairs has long been recognized as carrying with it preeminent authority in the field of national security and foreign intelligence . . . . It is clear that some Presidential authorities in this context are beyond Congress’s ability to regulate.”

(snip)
Then some fancy legal footwork. The Justice Department argues that because of the legal doctrine of “constitutional avoidance,” whereby when there’s a clash between statutes that could create a constitutional dispute, those statutes should be read in such a way as to avoid the collision, the FISA act and the authorization of force must be interpreted the President’s way.

(snip)
“Even if these provisions were ambiguous, any doubt as to whether the AUMF and FISA should be understood to allow the President to make tactical military decisions to authorize surveillance outside the parameters of FISA must be resolved to avoid the serious constitutional questions that a contrary interpretation would raise,” it states.
How convenient!


more
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0122-23.htm

oh ... wait a minute, that's what you're already doing.

who ultimately went to Tricky and urged him to resign and who were all set to vote for impeachment . . . they put country above party, and they did the right thing . . . the pack we have today are so self-involved and money-grubbing that Bush could take a public shit in the Rose Garden and they'd praise him for promoting composting . . .