Article Regarding Bush Spying

Discussion in 'Political Discussions' started by Abner, Jan 7, 2006.

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  1. Abner

    Abner Well-Known Member

  2. Orson

    Orson New Member

    The CRS (Congressional Research Service, a nonpartisan arm of the Library of Congress) report is quoted thusly, above:

    "It appears unlikely that a court would hold that Congress has expressly or impliedly authorized the NSA electronic surveillance operations here," the authors of the CRS report wrote. The administration's legal justification "does not seem to be . . . well-grounded," they said.

    This makes no sense to me: how could they reach such a conclusion? The Supreme Court has always upheld federal government surveillance as a proper function of the executive branch pursuiant to (Article II) war powers. There would be no sense for Congress to authorize war efforts, but only those that are entered into blindly. It would be to frustrate the executive branch's Constitutional obligation to defend the nation.

    -Orson
     
  3. Orson

    Orson New Member

    Abner-

    This story gets curiouser and curiouser. Apparently the media (ie, Newsweek'd sister publication, the Wash Post) has truncated its account of a nuanced 44 page CRS report http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/intel/index.html in order to slant coverage and gin-up "news." Welcome to the post-modern age where "news" is completely made up!

    John Hinderaker, a Minnesota-based lawyer who is one of the principle blogger's who brought down CBS News' Dan Rather over a year ago for being duped by fraudualent document to support anti-Bush story (and turn a presidential election), writes:


    "The [CRS] report...acknowledges the legitimacy of the administration's claim that the Constitution gives the President the inherent power to conduct the surveillance in question, regardless of any Congressional action or inaction (more on this later):

    'Court cases evaluating the legality of warrantless wiretaps for foreign intelligence purposes provide some support for the assertion that the President possesses inherent authority to conduct such surveillance.'

    "Where the Post is most mendacious, however, is in the truncated quote that it presents as the CRS's overall conclusion [as noted in my post above]: 'The administration's legal justification 'does not seem to be ... well grounded,' they said.'"

    "Here is what the CRS actually wrote:

    'Given such uncertainty, the Administration's legal justification, as presented in the summary analysis from the Office of Legislative Affairs, does not seem to be as well-grounded as the tenor of that letter suggests.'

    "So the Post's headline, instead of reading, 'Report Rebuts Bush on Spying,' should have said, 'Report Expresses Uncertainty on Spying.'

    "Putting aside the Post's misreporting, which will no doubt be echoed in many other newspapers, what does the CRS report actually add to the debate on the legal issues? Not much."
    http://powerlineblog.com/archives/012760.php

    Finally, Hinderaker argues that the CRS analysis relies too much on a constitutional analysis proferred by Justice Jackson in 1952, dealing with domestic matters tangentially related to war (the power to order striking unions back to work), not presidential war powers andsurveillance themselves! http://powerlineblog.com/archives/012708.php#012708 Such irrelevance appears to weaken even the CRS case for uncertainty about warrantless presidential searches.

    SO - we have a mendacious media spin to gin-up "news" that misleads us about its contents. That's the real news.

    Perhaps we ought to ask if THIS is President Clinton's true legacy: an epidemic poisoning of the public sphere by demogogury. And you, dear Abner, appear to have been vitcimized by it too.

    -Orson
     
  4. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    The law of war is not one of my specialties as a lawyer but it seems to me that the Administration and Congress are each correct according to their own view of the war on terror itself.

    The President cannot engage in domestic warrantless wiretapping in peacetime as a law enforcement measure. That is abundantly clear. Telecommunications are secret and have been since the invention of the telegraph in the mid 19th century.

    But in battle, Congress really has little to say about what the military finds necessary to do. The President as Commander in Chief has the right to fight the war as he deems appropriate.

    So it turns, I think, on the view one takes of the war. Is it REALLY a war or is it a law enforcement matter? Or is it something in between?

    Since the law isn't very clear, and I don't think that it IS very clear, I think that the matter will be resolved by political action. Now that's dicey because what is REALLY going on, it looks to me, is that Congress is becoming jealous of its constitutional role as a check on the power of the executive.

    We've seen this before, of course. Lincoln had the Committee on the Conduct of the War to contend with. Then, as now, the threat is real and it is HERE in our own country.

    So many Republican moderates want to distance themselves from a less than popular Administration during an election year.

    Frankly, I think it's chickenshit.

    But what do I know?
     
  5. Abner

    Abner Well-Known Member


    Thanks for your concern brother Orson, but anyone who knows me well would certainly not call me a victim.

    On another note, at least your party finally had the cojones to get that piece of human excrement Delay to step down. Of course, they should have done it much sooner.

    Good evening!

    Abner
     
  6. lspahn

    lspahn New Member

    Oh, we all know that neither side is very good at holding themselves to a univeral standard. Wonder what will happen as Sen.Reid is implicated in the Abmermoff scandel. Did anyone see him on Fox news??? He came totally unglued...what big willie say "thou douth protest too much"..


    Either way..I think Delay is slimey, but remeber he has been invistigated multiple times, gone to the map, and won. THey DA going after him has some other motivations...or he would be going after everyone from texas except my favorite Congresman Paul.......
     
  7. Laser100

    Laser100 New Member

  8. Orson

    Orson New Member

    Abner-

    Regarding your first point, I stand corrected. Nonetheless, Chris Mathew's "Hardball" report by NBC's David Shuster on January 16th repeated all the above accusations and slants from the CRS report, and none of the salient corrections I've added above. Certainly some people are easily hornswaggled.

    Regarding former House Speaker Tom DeLay, he certainly is a tool, and after his remarks after hurricane Katrina, about having no pork to cut in a 3.6 trillion dollar budget, I'm glad to see him go. But what make's him a "human piece of excrement" to Democrats* - I still can't fathom. What has he done that Democrats haven't always done (or are still doing)?

    The party of Goebbels continues to amaze and mystify me. My only hunch is that all Dems are fetishists; it's the only explanation for irrational group manias.

    -Orson
    ______________
    *I was dating a Democrat last year, who was once a PR aide to a Dem state representative in Nebraska, who held the same irrational opinion of DeLay.
     
  9. Bill Huffman

    Bill Huffman Well-Known Member

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