Angles of attack on Spygate

It appalls me that our Dems have yet to frame an argument on this, despite the fact that Bush has set up a secret information police force accountable to no one but the president. Politically, this reminds me of nothing so much as the run-up to the Iraq war. We are being bowled over by a governmental outrage via demagoguery and fear mongering in an election year. Somebody needs to stand up and bite some ears.

Here is a collection of the arguments I have seen so far, along with my opinion on their usefulness. Please feel free to add your own or beat up on these.

These won't work:

1. Howling about encroachment on civil liberties.
2. Blythe appeals to checks and balances.

These will work:

1. Say Bush broke the law. Only his own subordinates say he didn't. He didn't need to break the law, but he did anyway in order to accrue power for himself and Cheney.
2. Say Bush tainted existing terrorist cases, throwing the court system into a tailspin.
3. Demand proof that anything significant has been achieved by Bush's spying or by the Patriot Act. Bush is exaggerating the importance of these and offers no proof (even to cleared Congressional Committees) of any significant accomplishments. If anything, this is the pattern at the core of all things Bush. No results; good PR.
4. Say Bush may have monitored the calls of political opponents or even Patrick Fitzgerald.

function of the crime of illegal wiretapping being exposed by the media?

... legal, the media would not have had anything to report.

I think you will find some powerful arguments there..

Doug D.
Orlando, FL


http://www.brainshrub.com/president-wiretap

Listening in without a warrant isn't just impolite, it's a felony.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (USC Title 50 Chapter 36 Subchapter 1) specifically prohibits the government from doing what the President has secretly ordered and it is a serious felony with major penalties.

The President has publicly confessed to this felony on national television. He ordered government agencies to engage in spying on thousands of American citizens without a warrant when the Congress made specific provisions in law to cover all circumstances, even emergency situations so that the government could listen in for up to 72 hours before obtaining a warrant, plenty of time to find and convince a judge.

There is no excuse for this action, yet the President has done so anyways.

That the President has colluded with others to do so, also makes this a conspiracy subject to fine and imprisonment up to 5 years per count under USC TITLE 18 PART I CHAPTER 19 § 371.

That he has chosen to hide it from the public, the Congress, law enforcement agencies, and the Courts through secret findings and secret orders may also be a case for obstruction of justice under USC TITLE 18 PART I CHAPTER 73 § 1512 paragraph (b).

The penalties for illegal wiretaps are severe, up to 5 years and $10,000 per count. The President has admitted to reauthorizing this violation of the law 30 separate times and thousands of phone calls have been intercepted.

Did anyone ever see the movie The Firm? I think we've just found the way to shut down the firm of Bendini Lambert and Locke.

The time has come for Prosecutor Fitzgerald to step forward and finally take the gloves off.

It is definitely time for the Congress to convene impeachment hearings.

More information:

FISA Act:

USC Title 50 Chapter 36 Subchapter 1

§ 1809. Criminal sanctions

Release date: 2005-03-17

(a) Prohibited activities A person is guilty of an offense if he intentionally—

(1) engages in electronic surveillance under color of law except as authorized by statute; or

(2) discloses or uses information obtained under color of law by electronic surveillance, knowing or having reason to know that the information was obtained through electronic surveillance not authorized by statute.

(b) Defense

It is a defense to a prosecution under subsection (a) of this section that the defendant was a law enforcement or investigative officer engaged in the course of his official duties and the electronic surveillance was authorized by and conducted pursuant to a search warrant or court order of a court of competent jurisdiction.

(c) Penalties An offense described in this section is punishable by a fine of not more than $10,000 or imprisonment for not more than five years, or both.

(d) Federal jurisdiction There is Federal jurisdiction over an offense under this section if the person committing the offense was an officer or employee of the United States at the time the offense was committed.




http://www.brainshrub.com/wish-for-more-wishes

On December 19th, during a press conference, President George Bush used the Constitution to justify warrantless wiretaps of Americans:



"As President and Commander-in-Chief, I have the constitutional responsibility and the constitutional authority to protect our country. Article II of the Constitution gives me that responsibility and the authority necessary to fulfill it."

Watching the president attempt to excuse his illegal activities this way, made me realize that the president has a "wishing-for-more-wishes" attitude toward constitutional law: It's as if Bush views our founding document as a genie that initially offered him 3 wishes, but now he is using his third wish to ask for a thousand more.

It's a good strategy in theory, but even in the fairy tales there are prohibitions against doing this.

In the Disney movie "Aladdin", the genie quickly sets some ground rules for his new master; the first one was: "No wishing for more wishes"



ALADDIN: Whoa! Wish fulfillment?
GENIE: Three wishes to be exact. And ix-nay on the wishing for more wishes. That's it--three. Uno, dos, tres. No substitutions, exchanges or refunds.

In the real-world, US presidents, like imaginary genies, are also supposed to have checks on their power.

The Executive power mentioned in Article II Section 1, only means the power to execute the laws that have been passed by Congress nothing more.

The President has NO powers not explicitly enumerated in the Constitution. Every branch has powers which are specifically enumerated in the document and all powers that are not enumerated to the Government are reserved to the People and the states, not the government as explicitly stated in the 9th and 10th Amendments to the Constitution:



Amendment IX - Construction of Constitution. (Ratified 12/15/1791)
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Amendment X - Powers of the States and People. (Ratified 12/15/1791)
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.


It's ironic that Republicans, who claim to be the party of limited government, smaller government and states rights - today make the argument that the President has "magic" unenumerated powers now that George has gone and confessed to a felony.

The enumerated powers of the President are listed in Article 2 section 2 as follows:

"Sect. 2. The President shall be Commander in Chief of the army and navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States; he may require the opinion, in writing, of the principal officer in each of the executive departments, upon any subject relating to the duties of their respective offices, and he shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.

He shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers, and Consuls, Judges of the Supreme Court, and all other offices of the United States, whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by law. But the Congress may by law vest the appointment of such inferior officers as they think proper in the President alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of departments.

The President shall have power to fill up all vacancies that may happen during the recess of the Senate, by granting commissions, which shall expire at the end of their next session."


Nowhere in Article 2 Section 2 does it grant the President the magical power to ignore the separation of powers or the 4th Amendment or the right to break or ignore the law (which would be a violation of the separation of powers as well as illegal.) In fact it is the President's duty to enforce and execute the law, hence the title "Chief Executive."

If Bush could violate the 4th Amendment on the basis he claims, then why not any other provision of the Constitution, say the 22nd Amendment limiting him to 2 terms, or the term of office listed in Article 2?

Why bother with a Constitution at all?

These enumerated Executive powers are relatively weak compared to those granted to Congress which authored the Constitution. The Legislative body granted itself far more extensive powers. If Bush had read the Federalist papers (particularly #69,#70) he would know that they were very much afraid of the President becoming a King.

The Founding Fathers based our government on the separation of powers and law, not the whims of the chief executive. If Bush wants a genie, he should have one of his agents go out and rent the Disney movie.


http://www.brainshrub.com/us-banana-republic

It’s official - We Now Live in a Banana Republic.

Last week we heard the shocking news that the President had secretly ordered NSA phone taps without a warrant of any sort of hundreds and possibly even thousands ordinary American citizens making overseas calls over the last 3 years in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and justified it using a secret legal “finding” from the Justice Department.

Previously, President Bush, in clear violation of various extradition treaties with foreign countries, has secretly ordered the illegal kidnapping from certain foreign countries to others of persons he believed to be terrorists and used another secret “finding” from the Justice Department to once again to justify that order.

We’ve seen the President order that an American citizen, Jose Padilla, who was taken into custody not on a foreign battlefield, but rather in Chicago Illinois - be held in a U.S. Navy brig in South Carolina without a trial, a judge, a jury or even access to a lawyer for three years.

Again this action was also justified by a legal "finding” contrived by the Justice Department.

This illegal detention continued until they were faced with the likely embarrassment that a conservative, largely Republican appointed Supreme Court would force them to release Mr. Padilla. At this point they finally announced charges against Mr. Padilla but these charges had nothing to do with the original reasons for detaining him.

We’ve seen the President order that suspected terrorists captured on battlefields abroad be held in a multitude of secret prisons including at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba ; Abu Gharab, Iraq; in Eastern Europe; and elsewhere without access to an International Red Cross representative and without a proper accounting of who those prisoners are to the IRC.

Those prisoners have been repeatedly subjected to abuse and even torture and a number of prisoners have even died as a result of their treatment.

More legal “findings” from the Justice Department were used to justify these actions that are in clear violation of the Constitution’s prohibition that “no person may be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment” and that are in violation of other Federal statutes and international treaty obligations.

We’ve even seen the President and Vice President lobbying to stop Congress from passing anti-torture legislation until last week when they were faced with the embarrassing prospect of Congress overriding a Presidential veto.

We’ve seen the President lie to both the Congress and the American People about the reasons for starting a war, and then attempt to silence his critics through Nixonian tactics such as the illegal outing of the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame.

We’ve seen the Administration use our government to fund and distribute covert propaganda both here and abroad.

We’ve seen the Administration use our government to illegally collect information on air travelers without a warrant where no probable cause existed to justify these illegal database searches.

We’ve seen the Administration attempt to create Orwellian government propaganda offices such as the Office of Strategic Influence and Orwellian government research programs such as “Cities that See” in an attempt to use computers and cameras to track the movements of everyday ordinary citizens as they walk down city streets.

Never has any American President committed so many illegal, immoral and unconstitutional acts. Never.

Even Richard Nixon at some level understood that wiretaps without a court order were illegal, unconstitutional and wrong. The Watergate “plumbers” after all were burglars, not government agents acting behind the shield of official protection.

President Bush acts as though the Constitution were a hindrance, a burden, and an obstacle to be worked around rather than understanding that it is his primary duty to preserve, protect, defend and obey the Constitution.

He uses often-secret legal findings by his Justice Department to give the appearance of propriety while denying the third branch of government, the Federal Court system, any say in the matter. He never gets these Justice Department findings approved by the Congress, the Courts, or the people.

These fiat findings and executive orders are but one step removed from “because the King said so” and circumvent the very checks and balances the Founders intended for our protection.

The President swore an oath before God and the American People “to the best of his Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

The President is fond of telling us that his number one priority is the protection of the American people and he repeated this claim yet again recently to a PBS reporter.

His oath of office however makes no mention of protecting the American people, nor does the Constitution charge him with that responsibility.

This, at first, may seem odd but the Founding Fathers understood well that tyrants often justified their actions on the basis that they were acting in the best interest of protecting the people.

They did not fight a revolution to remove themselves from the clutches of one king only to appoint a different king to take his place. They wanted a democratic government. They wanted an open government where effective checks and balances protected both the rights of the majority and the rights of the individual against those would be tyrants.

Protecting the American people is no excuse for destroying the American Constitution.

Secrecy is anathema to democracy for it denies “We the People” our fundamental right to an accountable government and our fundamental right to make an informed decision at the ballot box.

The President has repeatedly used secrecy to hide his illegal actions from the view of the Congress, the Courts, and most importantly the American people.

That the New York Times was aware of the fact that the President was illegally spying on American citizens without a court order - and chose to withhold that fact from the American public for over a year makes them an accomplice to that crime.

For the New York Times to withhold this information during an election year is in fact an unforgivable sin against the American People.

It is the duty of the press, above all else, to bring such abuses of power to the light of day.

That the President expects us to trust him for an extended period with the expanded and Constitutionally questionable powers that were granted to him under the PATRIOT Act after they expire in December would be laughable were it not so dangerous.

Today is hardly the first “trying time” that Americans have ever known. We should not allow the President to frighten us into giving up our American birthright – the Constitution - and into replacing a free government of laws by a mere dictatorship of men.

That the President has gotten away with so many impeachable offenses for so long is baffling and deeply disturbing. The United States Congress and the Senate investigated Richard Nixon and prepared Articles of Impeachment against him for far less serious offenses.

It is long since time for them to impeach President Bush.

For all its flaws, the patriot act is a law and those that wrote it should be held accountable. the FISA secret court is arguably a threat to civil liberties.

But those laws are too restrictive for Bush, who is not satisfied short of a blanket executive exemption from law in general.

I would add a #5: "Is the president exempt from the law? If the answer is "sometimes" then which ones should he follow?"

seem to be the strongest arguments I've heard that I think will go over with the average Joe. Thanks for the post-kicked and nominated.