Bush spies on Americans

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ae: I think you have a wrong impression about how intelligence agencies operate. Spies are not supposed to break the law as a matter of fact (at least in a democracy).

As about why do we care (since it does not affect us personally, or anybody at all): I think I mentioned before, if you wait till these things affect you, you have waited too long. Chances are, by that time the situation has been accepted as established, and trying to reverse it will be futile.

Yes, Hacken, and how intercepting everybody's phone call would have helped unmask that double agent in the CIA?! You think he'd have been so stupid as to say in a nonencrypted telephonic conversation: hey, i am a doube agent? For that matter, I am sure even the terrorists know better.

As about giving Bush the benefit of the doubt: well, that time has passed (about four years ago, actually). More exactly, when he started using 9/11 as a lever to maintain/obtain political power (for him and his party). Not to mention that funny business about the Iraq war. So, i should be excused that I do not trust him.

 

Silly Hack, don't you know the tea smiley is ?

Well, our spies aren't supposed to break our laws, but they're supposed to break everybody else's laws as much as they can. The basic idea being that they're working for us.

 

If the Executive branch of the government can do whatever it pleases why have congress or the Supreme Court?

Of course spies break laws but if they get caught they face death. Of course this doesn't count if they are spying on their own people in their own country.

 

Here's more on the threat that George II presents to open and fair government:

What is the threat? Is it real? Yes, it is. But George's followers fail to see the big picture, and instead, focus on the "war on terror" as an excuse for selling out our freedoms and the right to know what our government is up to regarding its policies towards its own people, not just those suspected terrorists.

This is a direct threat to our system of government and the separation of powers, which was the hinge on which much of the Constitution rests regarding the machinery of government:

This is a very dangerous situation, and may even be a greater threat to our system of government than that of any outside "terrorist group."

Indeed. That has been how this regime has operated. What was it that they said about "fashioning their own reality" and that "by the time anyone was the wiser," they would have "moved on to create another?" That seems to be a fairly accuate decription of what these guys have accomplished. And it seems to be always the same crowd:

That seems very likely. Remember how Richard Nixon had a young assistant attorney named William Rehnquist in the same role? With very similar views on executive power?

It seems that George II is learning from the mistakes made by his mentor. It was Nixon's mistake that he never suspected that those in posistions of responsibility in the executive branch would ever "rat him out" as indeed some did.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2006/01/05/spying/

 

Maybe I am coming at this from the wrong angle, but honestly, I don't believe that the NSA was spying on American citizens was any big deal. After all, they're in the business of gathering intelligence and information. If that's your job, you cast as wide a net as possible, because you're never sure where to get the specific information from, or exactly what you're looking for. That in itself is unremarkable and is in fact legal, so long as the legislative requirements are fulfilled.

No, the problem is not that Americans are being spied upon. That's been happening for ages, as AE has already stated. However, for the most part, it has been happening according to particular controls and checks on unrestrained use of that power.

The problem, as Chandos' most recent post spells out quite well, is that rather than use the correct processes (which exist, and have been favourable to retrospective warrants on all but 4 previous occasions, IIRC), Bush has decided to ignore the inbuilt audit of this intrusion and just let people do it by decree. There's a retrospective application system that's existed longer than I have - what the heck is wrong with using that?

No head of state in a democratic nation should believe themselves to have a right to exercise whatever executive authority they want - they're not a king or a god-emperor. Due process binds everybody, not just the rank-and-file plebs. As for the "we're at war" argument - that's not a good enough excuse to throw reviews out the window, and that's exactly what's happening here. I wouldn't want even the most benevolent of leaders to have that kind of unaccountable power.

This kind of action demonstrates to me that the Bush Administration is more concerned with autocracy than even a pretense of democracy. That isn't to say they're alone in that; Australia's government is brutally abusing its Senate majority to stifle debate on important laws (but that's another topic), and I'm certain past governments on all sides have done likewise. That this is being done by people who've been pissed off at the loss of presidential authority since Nixon resigned over Watergate, and a president who doesn't even seem to comprehend the ramifications of such a position, is what worries me most. I wouldn't trust any of them to sit the right way on a toilet seat if they could make a buck or any political gain by not doing it.

But hey, at least we're a US ally... and thankfully, it appears that there are some people who will still come forward for reasons of conscience.

 

I don't really have time to wade through all five pages of this thread, so if my subsequent question has been answered already, my apologies and please refer me to it.

To me, this whole issue boils down to one question: The administration is arguing that engaging these wiretaps immediately - without going through the warrant process - is essential to gathering key information that has only a small window of opportunity. Fine, all well and good.

My question is, rather than throwing out the rule of law and checks and balances (for seemingly no better reason than "Presidential priveledge in a time of war"), why not work to expedite the process and gaining a warrant? Perhaps a suspended or retroactive warrant system could be put in place that still maintains judicial oversight and accountability while still allowing immediate and effective wiretapping.

Seems a lot more reasonable and logical to me than the Bush administration's line of "we're doing whatever we have to to protect Americans, so piss off - you should be thanking us."

At the end of the day, the Bush Administration decided the law and legal accountability didn't apply to them, plain and simple. No matter the reason for doing it, it's still wrong. There were ways of going about this without overstepping their mandate, and IMO, they clearly have stepped over it here. This issue is a big deal.

Edit - I also believe this is an impeachable offense, and the only reason imeachment will never happen is because Republicans control congress. If Clinton had done this...whew.

 

DR - such a process already exists. If you have to do the wiretap immediately, you still have 72 hours to get the warrant retroactively. The problem is Bush isn't doing this because he says they don't have all the information to obtain the warrant. In many cases, they don't even know WHO they are tapping, so they don't get the warrant because they can't fill out the line that says "Name:".

 

Did anyone pay attention to the talk by General Hayden justifying the NSA intelligence gathering methods? He blathers a lot, and it's kind of hard to follow, but what's more interesting is the question session at the end. Some excerpts:

The question seems pretty clear to me. The answer, much less so.

How about this

What seems interesting to me is that the administration, instead of admitting they have overreached with this stuff, apparently decided to go on counterattack and paint their critics as being in the wrong (Democrats out for political gain, the usual stuff). Bush and co. must believe this will work; and it might well be so. (After all, it won't be the first time).

 

Bush is not "teetering on the edge of doing something illegal", as Hack coyly puts it; he IS doing something illegal. Wiretapping without a warrent is against the law. Whether you do it, or I do it, or the President of the United States does it. It really is that simple.

The excuse that "national security" requires it is just that: an excuse. The FISA courts were set up specifically to "streamline" wiretapping, where the government's mere assertion that it was necessary would produce the desired order to proceed, without the proofs that would be needed to obtain such an order in the regular court system. But this wiretap Star Chamber, already a serious intrusion on civil liberties, which would likely have rubberstamped almost all requests by the administration, was still not considered sufficient by the White House. Which makes one wonder just what names were on the lists they declined to submit to a very tame court. Or do they consider any restraint on their prerogative an impertinance? They say "national security", but I believe what they mean is "Divine Right".

No administration in the history of our Republic has made so determined and relentless an assault on our Liberties and our Constitution as this one. Death Rabbit is surely right when he says this is an impeachable offence.

I remember seeing a theatre marquee in Oakland, California that didn't advertise a movie. It said:

"What is an impeachable offence?

"Lying about sex?

"Or Lying to wage war?"

Think about it.

[ January 24, 2006, 08:41: Message edited by: Cernak ]

 

The answer, unfortunately, is self-evident.

 

This argument would hold more weight if somebody who was not member of the administration (or Rush Limbaugh) would claim so.

IIRC, a nonpartisan Congressional organization said that what Bush did was illegal. Also, some of his party are against this stuff (like McCain). And really, it is not so hard to judge by yourself. If you leave out the BS, what went on is clearly in contradiction of the FISA act.

You gotta love the spin on this, though. It is not "domestic spying" anymore; it is called "terrorist surveillance program" .

 

The law and it's interpretations aren't simple, but a very real case exists about whether or not the president is overstepping his authority. Like it or not, the entire purpose of FISA is first, to protect americans from unlawful survailance. (I believe the right to privacy is granted by the bill of rights.....) The secondary (and in my opinion, more important) purpose is to protect the intelligence community from the court of public opinion. When americans percieve (rightly or not) that their government is spying on them this sows distrust of the government and government organizations. This is bad for everyone. This is especially important to consider since, as mentioned earlier, FISA is essentially a rubber stamp. I don't know what Bush is trying to accomplish here but what he is doing will disenfranchise even more americans. And it makes no one safer, either.

 

Actually, the right to privacy is not guaranteed in the Bill of Rights, apart from the 4th Amendment's injunction against unreasonable search and seizure, nor in any other amendment, although Supreme Court rulings on specific questions have held that it is implied.

The law setting up the FISA system is actually a watering down of the 4th Amendment's guarantees.

The quaint arguments of the adminstration's supporters and apologists are like a man insisting that there is no avalalanche because he, personally, has not yet been hit by a rock.

 

I agree 100%, in fact I don't think Bush has gone far enough. He should force(upon penalty of death) everyone to buy trillion channel TVs, and set up video cameras in every single room of each house(including mine.) Then we can all make sure the next person isn't a terrorist. Plus, I think it would be fun if Laura Bush oogled me when I'm in the shower.

 

If only language were a precise enough tool that there was no room for misinterpretation, deliberate or otherwise! Then there would be no need for argument or reliance upon tenuous interpretation as a basis for determining what can and cannot legally be done by a government or head of state.

At best, it appears that Bush's administration is constructing (or attempting to construct) an implied power for the use of executive orders that expressly violate standing legislation in secret and without recourse to the legislature. Effectively, that creates a dictatorship in all but name as far as that implied power stretches, since the executive can overrule the legislature and the judiciary and there is no basis for appeal. An actual state of war or a high-level security emergency can warrant the deployment of extraordinary measures; routine intelligence-gathering and investigation is seldom so time-sensitive as to require them, and even then, the provisions for doing so without a warrant already exist. So why didn't they use them, particularly when the approval court has hardly been opposed to granting such orders (and even if they had, you'd still have some intelligence from the wiretaps)?

Maybe I'm being overly dramatic, but I'm sure you can see why I'm concerned about this becoming a precedent. They could have easily avoided any real scandal by applying for retrospective warrants, rather than inventing a power that does not exist in legislation or case law. That their chosen path was so dismissive of the basic principles of democracy and the separation of powers - and the unrepentant stand being taken - reeks of arrogance and a belief that they are somehow above the law.

 

There is a good reason for this - consider one of the defining moments in America's history, which is thought to have sparked the Revolution.

The case came about in some ways as Cernak describes in the previous post. The Writs-of-Assistance had been antagonizing Boston merchants for sometime before Otis decided to step down from his well-paid post as the King's Atttorney and take up the cause against the Writs.

Jeremiah Gridley took up the King's cause and opened the argument with this: "How could a state protect itself against foreign enemies, or subversives at home? Which was more important, protecting the liberty of an individual or collecting the King's taxes? The gathering of public money must take precedence," Grindley argued.

Watchng in the courtroom was a young attorney named John Adams who remembered James Otis rising like a "flame of fire" in the courtroom. "Every man lived in a state of Nature," Otis explained carefully. "Every man was his own sovereign, subject to the laws engraved on his heart and revealed to him by his Maker...A man's house is his castle and if a man behaves quietly there he must be treated as if he were a prince in it."

Adams was thunderstruck by what Otis had to say and it started him on the road that would lead him to become one of the titans for American independence. It also made Otis an instant hero with the population of Boston. But it was clear that the right to personal liberty and the right to live peacefully in one's own home without interference from the government had become a defining issue for the colonies, and its meaning would later come to define a nation. It's a shame that George II and "Team Bush" are betraying that meaning.

 

I keep saying we should revive telepathy, but noone seems to care.

That's it exactly. If they can't get a warrant even retroactively, then they have no proof that warrants (there's that word again) a phone tap in the first place. At the very least, they should tap and apply, and when they get rejected they can withdraw the tap, having already covered what they believed was a crucial time period. But not even applying for a retroactive warrant shows that they know they have no good reason at all for tapping the phone. And for the government to willfully commit unlawful acts is...I gotta stop now before I start swearing.