This is huge. In 2002, Bush administration OPPOSED legislation to make it easier to wiretap under FISA
by John in DC - 1/25/2006 11:54:00 PM
The Bush Administration opposed legislation that would have given them the very power they now claim they needed, power they now claim they didn't have under FISA. It's because they didn't have this power, they now claim, that they had to break the law and spy without a warrant. But this law would have given them much of the legal power they wanted. Yet they said they didn't need it, and worse yet, that the proposed legislation was likely unconstitutional. But now we know they did it anyway.
And it was all discovered by a blogger, and now it's a big story in Thursday's Washington Post and LA Times. Amazing.
And when you read through the story, below, note what the administration NOW says. They claim the new legislation wouldn't have gone far enough. Really? First, the administration said at the time that the legislation went too far and wasn't needed, so bull.
Second, the Bush administration now is changing their story and claiming that they opposed the legislation because it wouldn't have permitted them to snoop as much as they wanted. But back in 2002 the Bush people said that even the lesser-snooping-power in the proposed legislation was likely unconstitutional. So if the lesser power was likely unconstitutional, imagine how unconstitutional Bush's ACTUAL domestic spying program was and is? A program that by the Bush administration's own admission went (and goes) far beyond what the proposed proposed law would have allowed.
And what's more, the proposed legislation that the Bush administration thought might be unconstitutional, that law applied only to the Bush administration spying on foreigners, NOT Americans. If it was likely unconstitutional for them to use the proposed law to spy on foreigners, imagine how unconstitutional that law would have been had it been applied to Americans? But the Bush warrantless spying WAS on Americans, and by their own admission went FAR beyond the proposed unconstitutional law.
So Bush chose to break the law when he had an alternative. And what's worse, this suggests that Bush feared the Supreme Court would never let him spy on Americans the degree to which he wanted, the court would find it unconstitutional, so that's why Bush never sought the change in the law proposed in 2002 - Bush thought it would have been struck down by the Supreme Court. So Bush chose to break the law in order to circumvent the Supreme Court enforcing the US Constitution.
This is huge.
Glenn, the blogger who broke this, makes one more important point:
And its claim that Congress knew of and approved of its FISA-bypassing eavesdrop program is plainly negated by the fact that the same Congress was debating whether such changes should be effectuated and then refused to approve much less extreme changes to FISA than what the Administration secretly implemented on its own (and which it now claims Congress authorized).
Read on.
Well, well, well... every claim made by the Bush junta about the wiretaps is shown to be a lie and in one convenient place.
No wonder Numbnuts is trotting out the Nixon/ Pinochet line: "If the President does it, it's legal."
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, January 26, 2006; Page A04
The Bush administration rejected a 2002 Senate proposal that would have made it easier for FBI agents to obtain surveillance warrants in terrorism cases, concluding that the system was working well and that it would likely be unconstitutional to lower the legal standard.
The proposed legislation by Sen. Mike DeWine (R-Ohio) would have allowed the FBI to obtain surveillance warrants for non-U.S. citizens if they had a "reasonable suspicion" they were connected to terrorism -- a lower standard than the "probable cause" requirement in the statute that governs the warrants.
The administration has contended that it launched a secret program of warrantless domestic eavesdropping by the National Security Agency in part because of the time it takes to obtain such secret warrants from federal judges under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
The wiretapping program, ordered by President Bush in 2001, is used when intelligence agents have a "reasonable basis to believe" that a target is tied to al Qaeda or related groups, according to recent statements by administration officials. It can be used on U.S. citizens as well as foreign nationals, without court oversight.
Democrats and national security law experts who oppose the NSA program say the Justice Department's opposition to the DeWine legislation seriously undermines arguments by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and others, who have said the NSA spying is constitutional and that surveillance warrants are often too cumbersome to obtain.
"It's entirely inconsistent with their current position," said Philip B. Heymann, a deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration who teaches law at Harvard University. "The only reason to do what they've been doing is because they wanted a lower standard than 'probable cause.' A member of Congress offered that to them, but they turned it down."
But Justice Department officials disagreed, saying the standard the department opposed in 2002 is legally different from the one used by the NSA.
"The FISA 'probable cause' standard is essentially the same as the 'reasonable basis' standard used in the terrorist surveillance program," said spokeswoman Tasia Scolinos, using the term for the NSA program the White House has adopted. "The 'reasonable suspicion' standard, which is lower than both of these, is not used in either program."
Justice officials also said that even under a different standard, the process of obtaining a surveillance warrant would take longer than is necessary for the NSA to efficiently track suspected terrorists.
The DeWine amendment -- first highlighted this week by Internet blogger Glenn Greenwald and widely publicized yesterday by the Project on Government Secrecy, an arm of the Federation of American Scientists -- is the latest point of contention in a fierce political and legal battle over the NSA monitoring program.
Many Democrats and some Republicans, along with legal experts from both sides, have criticized the program as a clear violation of the 1978 FISA law, which makes it a crime to conduct domestic surveillance without a criminal or intelligence warrant. The administration argues that Bush acted legally under the congressional authorization to use military force against al Qaeda, and that FISA would be unconstitutional if it constrains his power as commander in chief.
During separate appearances this week, Gonzales and Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the deputy intelligence chief, also said the legal requirements under FISA made it difficult for intelligence agents to act quickly enough in many cases.
Under the NSA program, Hayden said, "the trigger is quicker and a bit softer than it is for a FISA warrant."
During Senate debate over DeWine's amendment in July 2002, James A. Baker, the Justice Department's counsel for intelligence policy, said in a statement that the Bush administration did not support the proposal "because the proposed change raises both significant legal and practical issues."
Baker said it was "not clear cut" whether the proposal would "pass constitutional muster," and "we could potentially put at risk ongoing investigations and prosecutions" if the amendment was later struck down by the courts. He also said Justice had been using FISA aggressively and played down the notion that the probable cause standard was too high.
A DeWine spokesman declined to comment on the issue yesterday.
Also yesterday, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) sent a list of 15 sharply worded questions to Gonzales in preparation for a Feb. 6 hearing on the legality of the NSA program. Specter asks, among other things, why the government did not ask Congress for new legislation to allow the spying.
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What bugs me most is that it seems that NO ONE points this stuff out. No one seems to take this administration to task for these outright lies and obfuscations. You have the man virtually cooing in a news conference that he doesn't give a shit about Bin Laden and now he's telling America we have to take him seriously. Now this shit. But no one (in the main stream media that is) seems to be out there banging the drums about just how outrageously this man and his administration will lie and bend the law to do their whim and their fucking zombies mindlessly follow him. Which if the current upper 30's poll numbers still hold tells me that close to 40% of this nation are utter dolts, dullards and asslickers.
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Stravo wrote:What bugs me most is that it seems that NO ONE points this stuff out. No one seems to take this administration to task for these outright lies and obfuscations. You have the man virtually cooing in a news conference that he doesn't give a shit about Bin Laden and now he's telling America we have to take him seriously. Now this shit. But no one (in the main stream media that is) seems to be out there banging the drums about just how outrageously this man and his administration will lie and bend the law to do their whim and their fucking zombies mindlessly follow him. Which if the current upper 30's poll numbers still hold tells me that close to 40% of this nation are utter dolts, dullards and asslickers.
My theory on this is that the media is afraid of the accusations of "Liberal Bias" that will inevitably arise from the right. The media even seems to be going out of their way to paint Republican scandals as by-partisal ones (see the Jack Abramoff scandal) in order to appear "balanced".
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Yeah, I'm guessing because people have become so ingrained with the idea of a liberal media bias, the media wants to look as unbiased as possible, although they're idea of non-bias seems to be fair play to either party at the expense of the truth.
The first thing I thought as I read the article was flip-flop. Sound familiar? Oh... right.
I'm with Stravo on this one. Why the fuck is no one calling him out on this bullshit? They all but beat the flipflop bullshit into the ground during the election as I recall, but it's okay when he does it...
And I just saw on the news I think today, Bush, saying how 9/11 might not have happened if they'd had this spying bullshit in place back then. OOOO, imagine my shock, another contradiction.
And lets not get me ranting on how this is more or less superfluous with the goddamn FISA court in place! "Time is important in these investigations..." if 15 fucking days aren't enough time for you, I'm betting you don't have a case. And if you're going to weaken the case against the goddamn suspects as well as convicts already in prison, why are you bothering!?
UGH! The blatant out right goddamn stupidity of all of this boggles my mind. I can't even rant coherently.
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