Yes, OK, I look 80, so?
John Dean says to censure Bush — This just keeps getting better and better.
WASHINGTON — Former White House Counsel John Dean, a central figure in the Watergate scandal who served time for his involvement in the Nixon administration cover-up, told a panel of senators yesterday that President Bush should be censured for authorizing the government to eavesdrop on Americans’ international phone conversations.
Mr. Dean was the most controversial witness at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing yesterday, as members debated a proposal by Sen. Russell Feingold to censure Mr. Bush, which has angered Republicans and whipped up support for the Wisconsin senator in the Democratic base.
I don’t know how anyone can read the FISA act without concluding that GW Bush knowingly and intentionally broke the law.
Isn’t this worth congressional hearing, at the very least? How has congress so gone off the rails?
Google FISA yourself… there are tons of sites. I found this from the law:
[FISA courts] “shall be the exclusive means by which electronic surveillance communications may be conducted.”
Note the word “exclusive.” There is a wartime provision for losening the rules but Bush ignored those too.
For all the bad laws written, the FISA authors deserve credit for accurately predicting a guy like GW Bush would come along they made sure he was covered.
At the VERY least, this deserves serious investigation. But, I don’t expect that to happen as long as we have one-party rule.
GregAllen, obviously you missed those years, hrm lets see, 1950-1991 called the Cold War.
If you do some research, MANY presidents broke LOTs of rules to spy on people(including Americans), and it wasnt even war time.
The fear of an enemy among you(read communist/terrorist) kinda makes people take action without coming out and telling everyone you are taking action. Hrm thats called…oh yeah, Secret, which last time I checked was kinda important when your trying to catch someone trying to hide.
DHC….
I remember the cold war very well… and I remember the shameful abuses by the likes of J Edgar Hoover and Richard Nixon. I remember that they hid behind the skirts of “national security” but, in reality, it was just sleazy political gain.
The legal response to this abuse was FISA… which strikes me as good law protecting American’s constitutional rights while creating at least a minimal level of accountability for the government.
Once again, America has Hooveresque/Nixonesque leadership who believe they can break the law and get away with it in the name of “security.”
And, like back then, many fear-driven Americans are willing to give up their civil rights to gain some perceived sense of security.
Perceived… not real security. Can the Bush administration name even one single case where getting a FISA warrant would have messed things up? I’m following this fairly closely and I haven’t heard of one.
And I believe there’s a reason they can’t name a case… it’s because, once again, our leaders are abusing the law for sleazy political gain not real national security.
“They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security”…Benjamin Frankiln.
I think Old Ben said it best.
Isn’t this guy dead yet? He’s a professional complainer, which is why Dvorak and the media love him so much. What’s the last positive thing he said? You’ll have go back to his elementary school days to find it. That plus the fact he’s been wrong about everything he’s ever said.
I guess the libs are on vacation this weekend. They should have been all over this one by now.
I guess gregallen missed the 5 former FISA judges who all said that Bush had Constitutional standing for the program. Also one of your liberal icons Jimmy Carter gives precedent to NSA program with his “warrantless wiretaps” of an American in 1977. The 3rd Circuit Appeals court ruled that the President does posses powers to exercise wiretaps without anyone else’s approval. Also don’t forget that FISA is responsible for blocking the search of Zacarias Moussaoui’s laptop.
Moreover, John Schmidt, an associate Attorney General under BILL CLINTON, along with Robert F. Turner (associate director of the University of Virginia’s Center for National Security Law) and Lee Casey (another former Reagan administration attorney) all disagreed with John Dean opinion of censure.
J.S. Scongilli
OK, I am unaware of any FISA Judge expressing approval or disapproval. The actual members of the Court are drawn from the DC District Court on a rotating basis. ALL warrants issued by the FISA Court are secret unless they are used in a Court during a trial. Care to link to these 5 Judges that approved? I believe the disapproval rate for FISA warrants is something like 16 out of 11,500 requested.
Jimmy Carter NEVER approved ANY wiretap outside the FISA Court while it was in operation. I know that Limbaugh and Drudge have been saying otherwise, but it just ain’t so. Carter issued a directive to the effect that all National Security wiretaps were to be issued by the FISA Court. As did Bill Clinton, and George Bush #41.
The 3rd Circuit Court is not responsible for FISA and it’s ruling have no authority over the FISA Court. Also I am unaware of the ruling that you mentioned. Would you care to provide the case and if possible, a link?
The FISA Court DID NOT prevent a search of Moussaoui or any of his possessions. That was the FBI Minnesota Field Office Manager that decided there wasn’t enough evidence to pursue a search warrant. Even after his belongings were searched, the FBI didn’t find anything incriminating.
So where do you get this garbage?
Well John Dean is a very intelligent man who is a very good writer, I view his opinion with a slight view of skepticism. His point about Censure being preferable to Impeachment is by far the better. I agree that another Impeachment would be very difficult for the country to accept.
To me, at least, and a great many Americans, it does appear that Bush broke the spirit as well as the letter of the law. I wonder, will Bush be still criminally responsible for the crimes he authorized during his term after he leaves office?
A panel of former Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judges yesterday told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee that President Bush did not act illegally when he created by executive order a wiretapping program conducted by the National Security Agency (NSA).
The five judges testifying before the committee said they could not speak specifically to the NSA listening program without being briefed on it, but that a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act does not override the president’s constitutional authority to spy on suspected international agents under executive order.
“If a court refuses a FISA application and there is not sufficient time for the president to go to the court of review, the president can under executive order act unilaterally, which he is doing now,” said Judge Allan Kornblum, magistrate judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida and an author of the 1978 FISA Act. “I think that the president would be remiss exercising his constitutional authority by giving all of that power over to a statute.”
“[N]othing” in federal statutory law
shall limit the constitutional power of the President to take such measures as he deems necessary to protect the Nation against actual or potential attack or other hostile acts of a foreign power, to obtain foreign intelligence information deemed essential to the security of the United States, or to protect national security information against foreign intelligence activities. Nor shall anything … be deemed to limit the constitutional power of the President to take such measures as he deems necessary to protect the United States against the overthrow of the Government by force or other unlawful means, or against any other clear and present danger to the structure or existence of the Government.
All this came from a wiretapping law passed by Congress in 1968.