Reply #8: Ola electoins warrior [View All]

The word is getting out. 14 recs for a footnote.

Here's "the Person" Bruce Fein, former Reagan justice official and legal scholar.

He's awesome on this topic:

Committee on the judiciary, Hon. John Conyers,Chairman
http://thewall.civiblog.org/rsf/feinstmt12006.html
Jan. 20, 2006 (4 days after Al Gores thunderous speech on Jan. 16, 2006 at Constitution Hall)

MR. FEIN: The Founding Fathers understood that men were not angels and that "Trust me" was not a good enough protection for our civil liberties.

And, accordingly, they created a tripartite system of Government whereby the legislative, executive, and judicial branches would be restraints upon one another.

As Madison explained, "Ambition must be made to counteract ambition." And it, the issues of separation of powers, something that is critical to the civil liberties of the living and those yet to be born, that has been raised by President Bush's justification for his unilateral decision to authorize the National Security Agency to engage in eavesdropping without warrants against American citizens and declining to suggest that Congress has any role in the matter.

One of the reasons why the issue is so critical is that we will be in a state of permanent hostilities against terrorism for our lifetime and for the indefinite future.

So the claimed authorities of the President are not temporary. They will not go away. They will become permanent fixtures of the political and legal landscape, which is one reason why we must focus so clearly and sharply on the justifications.

Secondly, the President's claims do not distinguish in principle from intercepting a communication between a U.S. citizen in the United States and abroad or a communication wholly within the United States, because the gist of his authority that he claims is that if the purpose of the interception or surveillance is to advance or help defeat terrorism, then he can do it on his say-so alone without any consideration of what Congress has enacted.

For example, we know that the 9/11 perpetrators were within the United States prior to the attacks, and communication that they would have would be solely within the United States.

They may have communicated with an American citizen. There's nothing in the President's claim of authority to surveil only the wiretap to further the war against terrorism that would restrict his authority to only what he says he's doing now, surveiling or intercepting communications between the United States and abroad.

Snip

Now, the principle that the President has established here, if gone unchecked, will, as Justice Robert Jackson said, lie around like a loaded gun and be utilized by any future incumbent who claims a need.

And the history of power teaches us one thing, that if it's unchecked, it will be abused.

There will be overreaching, whether or not you have a benevolent individual or someone who's malevolent. That is the nature of power. As Lord Acton said, "Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely."

And we ought not to risk that when there are absolutely clear, legal, responsible ways to fight terrorism with all the aggressiveness that we need.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CONYERS: Thank you very much, Attorney Bruce Fein.