Power Play - Did Bush Roll Past the Legal Stop Signs? - WaPo

By Suzanne E. Spaulding

Sunday, December 25, 2005; Page B01

Suzanne Spaulding is a Washington lawyer. She was general counsel for the Senate and House Intelligence committees, assistant general counsel at the CIA and executive director of the National Terrorism Commission (1999-2000).

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At his news conference last week, President Bush objected when a reporter characterized his use of executive power to eavesdrop on Americans without any court order as "unchecked." The president's sensitivity is understandable. As he went on to explain, the charge of unchecked power implies that he is asserting a kind of dictatorial authority -- precisely what Americans fought, and continue to fight, against in Iraq. But what are the sources of checks and balances of a president's authority? They are the Congress, the courts and, ultimately, the American people. Based on the facts as reported so far, none of these appear to have operated as an effective check on this extraordinary exercise of presidential power.

Ironically, if it is ultimately determined that this domestic surveillance program reflects the exercise of unchecked power in contravention of law, it will wind up weakening the presidency. Once again, we will confront the challenge of restoring Americans' faith in the rule of law and our system of checks and balances. The administration says Congress was briefed "at least a dozen times" in the four years since the wiretap program started. Even assuming that these classified briefings accurately conveyed all relevant facts, it appears that they were limited to only eight of the 535 senators and representatives, under a process that effectively eliminates the possibility of any careful oversight.

As a former legal counsel for both Republican and Democratic leaders of the House and Senate intelligence committees, I'm well aware of the limitations of these "gang of eight" sessions. They are provided only to the leadership of the House and Senate and of the intelligence committees, with no staff present. The eight are prohibited from saying anything about the briefing to anyone, including other intelligence panel members. The leaders for whom I worked never discussed the content of these briefings with me.

It is virtually impossible for individual members of Congress, particularly members of the minority party, to take any effective action if they have concerns about what they have heard in one of these briefings. It is not realistic to expect them, working alone, to sort through complex legal issues, conduct the kind of factual investigation required for true oversight and develop an appropriate legislative response.

These gang of eight briefings, while sometimes necessary, should be extremely rare. Under the National Security Act, they are supposed to be limited to situations involving covert actions, and even then only under "extraordinary circumstances." Yet they have occurred with increasing frequency in the last few years.

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Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/23/AR2005122302050.html

Great info here.

:thumbsup::thumbsup:

would make it out to be.

Well written piece!

"everything in life can be simplified; nothing in life is simple"

says he'll keep on running them. Time to set up the roadblock and spin him out.