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Edited on Wed Dec-21-05 11:27 PM by WannaJumpMyScooter
On Dec. 16th when asked whether he authorized secret wiretaps used to spy on American citizens (without a court order) President Bush replied “we do not discuss ongoing intelligence operations to protect the country” and that he could not answer because “we're at a war.” The next day the President used the mass media to disclose that very thing to the world. What happened? Is the war over?
The President further claimed that his authorized spy operations were legal. Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University who specializes in surveillance law stated: “The president's dead wrong. It's not a close question. Federal law is clear… When the president admits that he violated federal law, that raises serious constitutional questions of high crimes and misdemeanors” (as quoted in The Charlotte Observer, Dec. 20, 2005). Conservative columnist George Will recently stated that Bush “has asserted a capacious doctrine of executive power” that is “literally unlimited.”
Congress, which is controlled by the President’s political party, will be highly resistant to fulfilling their oversight obligations. It is time for Sen. Bond, Sen. Talent, and Roy Blunt to do their job and move their satellite offices out of the Executive Branch
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