"Decider Points"...Junior Defends The Patriot Act and 'Enhanced Interrogations'

January 31, 2011 05:00 AM
George Bush Defends The Patriot Act and 'Enhanced Interrogations'

By Heather

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/george-bush-defends-patriot-act-and-enhanc



CAMERATO: Good morning Mr. President. My name is C.J. Camerato and I’m from Boston Massachusetts and I’m curious, were or are you concerned that legislation that you passed such as the Patriot Act opens the door for potential abuse by future presidencies?

BUSH: Great question. The law that was passed twice by the Congress, once when Republicans controlled the Congress, when we controlled the Congress and once after the ’06 election when we got soundly thumped, guarantee civil liberties and there’s a lot of safeguards in the law. And I don’t think a president can… can, through executive order preempt the safeguards in the Patriot Act. There are plenty of checks and balances in our system and throughout the book and historians will note throughout my presidency that I worked assiduously to make sure that civil liberties were not undermined.

And at the same time, provide the tools necessary for a president, future presidents to be able to protect the homeland and um… look, there’s some very controversial… the Patriot Act was one of the least controversial things I did initially. And then it became a… both parts of the political spectrum became a touchstone of too much government and yet the experts will tell you that the tools inherent in the Patriot Act were necessary to disrupt terrorist’s attacks.

And another interesting point in the book, I learned from history was that a lot of the actions that Harry Truman took made my life easier as president and therefore many of the decisions I made through executive order are the most controversial decisions I made through executive order, such as listening to the phone calls of people who might do us harm, or enhanced interrogation techniques, became the law of the land.