On Warrantless Surveillance, Debate Should Turn To Impeachment

Congressional Republicans talked tough earlier this year about warrantless surveillance.

At one point last month, JABBS counted 12 Republican Senators who publicly questioned President Bush's program, including several that sought a Congressional investigation of the program.

The basis of their concern: the program circumvented rules that say the National Security Agency must obtain a warrant before proceeding.

The White House claimed it had "inherent authority" to conduct such surveillance, but that argument was questionable, especially after the White House supported legislation from Sen. Mike DeWine (R-OH) to "further codify" the surveillance program.

In other words, the White House wanted it both ways -- it wanted people to accept the program as legal, and to pass legislation to make it legal. That may sound illogical, but neither the White House nor Congressional Republicans seemed to care. As DeWine said, "We don’t want to have any kind of debate about whether it’s constitutional or not constitutional."

The final straw came yesterday, when the Senate Intelligence Committee voted along party lines against an investigation of the warrantless surveillance program.

Instead, Congressional Republicans cut a deal with the White House. The draft legislation would authorize the president's program in 45-day increments, and would require that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales justify each individual warrantless wiretap to both the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court and new congressional subcommittees in both houses of Congress.

That may solve the problem of making the program legal going forward, but it doesn't solve the problem of the White House conducting an illegal program since the days immediately following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

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Americans, regardless of their politics, should be outraged.

It was just a few years ago that President Clinton was impeached for lying under oath about an affair with Monica Lewinsky. Republicans voted en masse -- some with glee -- against Clinton. And a few Democrats spoke out against their party's leader, most notably Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-CT), who lectured from the Senate floor about Clinton's "immoral" act.

I wouldn't dare defend Clinton's affair, nor his lying about it under oath. Neither action is becoming of a leader of the free world.

But neither is breaking the law. And logic dictates that if the U.S. needs legislation to legalize warrantless surveillance -- and everyone appears to agree that we do -- then that means that warrantless surveillance, minus legislation, is illegal.

Democratic leaders should be all over the news -- newspaper editiorials, Sunday and cable news/talk shows, talk radio, etc. -- demanding that the Congress immediately acknowledge the facts at hand, and deal with them as they did during the 1990s. That means impeachment proceedings.

And if the Congressional Republicans aren't willing to deal with the facts, and continue with the White House to try to have it both ways in order to protect their own, then Democrats need to tell the American people as much.

Americans should not tolerate Republican leaders putting party before country. It's not leadership to sweep illegal activity under the rug.

***

This item first appeared at JABBS.

it's all miss-direction, image, smoke and mirrors. George W. Bushit can't even run his own life. He is a failure at anything he has ever laid hand to. Yet we have this image of the tuff talking texas cowboy taking no crap, running rough shod over the world. If GWBushit is a leader than he's leading on the highway to hell.
Repukes and demishits, both, have no leaders of note, no uncomprimised persons upon which to call for leadership on the moral path. Those kind of people are usually out doing and don't really want to embrace the political life with it's unkind intimacy. We desperately need an uncompromising leader, but we have GWbushit. It just doesn't get any more ironic than that. A man (little boy most likely) who couldn't even complete the cushy national guard assignment he stole from poorer people. A man (little whore) who has left municipalities with multi million dollar tax bills unpaid (I heard 77million, not spare change) this turd of individual, this shitty compromised pissy little boy in a mans body is heralded as the leader, the commander in chief, steadfast, resolute, forward leaning. Man thats rich irony. Don't you just know that daddy bush understands in his heart of hearts that sonny boy pResident is the WORST. PRESIDENT. EVER. PERIOD.

You forgot, he is a criminal.

Clinton pissed me off with his little dally. It isn't against the law to get that kind of action, but he lied. I thought he was at least evolved enough to understand that when you screw up you go ahead and do what you can to make things right. But oh well. History.

No one died.

Harper's magazine recently hosted an impeachment forum (shown on C-Span) that included such notable panelists as: John Conyers, John Dean, Elizabeth Holtzman ...

you can watch the forum online (about 2 hours) by going to the following link and clicking on "Harper's Magazine Panel on Case Bush Impeachment" which is currently the first item on the list:

http://www.c-span.org/search/basic.asp?BasicQueryText=impeachment

the forum is very worth watching!!

this as payback for clinton, but it's no such thing.

If Democrats can't rally the troops when the president breaks the law, then they don't deserve to be the majority party.

No they don't.

It's over.

This should be a top issue for all Americans. It's pathetic if the Democrats roll on this one.

Gonzales said, when being confirmed, that the president is not above the law. If that's true, then this president, having broken the law, should suffer the consequences for his actions.

was if a few Repubs supported investigation. If they go party line, they win.

The Democrats should be going to the television and to newspaper editorials and airing this issue out. This should be front and center heading into November. If the Democrats don't demand accountability, who will?

I'll be disappointed in the extreme if even one Dem caves on this.

The time is perfect, at this very moment.

Keep visualizing...

All of DU should be talking. Call your Senators and demand accountability!!!!

The Democrat to most vocally stand up on this issue is Russ Feingold of Wisconsin. He said on Feb. 7:

"This program is breaking the law, and this President is breaking the law. Not only that, he is misleading the American people in his efforts to justify this program.

How is that worthy of applause? Since when do we celebrate our commander in chief for violating our most basic freedoms, and misleading the American people in the process? When did we start to stand up and cheer for breaking the law? In that moment at the State of the Union, I felt ashamed.

Congress has lost its way if we don’t hold this President accountable for his actions."