Powell Re: NSA- "It’s Addington, He doesn’t care about the Constitution"

THE HIDDEN POWER
The legal mind behind the White House’s war on terror.
by JANE MAYER
Issue of 2006-07-03
Posted 2006-06-26


On December 18th, Colin Powell, the former Secretary of State, joined other prominent Washington figures at FedEx Field, the Redskins’ stadium, in a skybox belonging to the team’s owner. During the game, between the Redskins and the Dallas Cowboys, Powell spoke of a recent report in the Times which revealed that President Bush, in his pursuit of terrorists, had secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on American citizens without first obtaining a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, as required by federal law. This requirement, which was instituted by Congress in 1978, after the Watergate scandal, was designed to protect civil liberties and curb abuses of executive power, such as Nixon’s secret monitoring of political opponents and the F.B.I.’s eavesdropping on Martin Luther King, Jr. Nixon had claimed that as President he had the “inherent authority” to spy on people his Administration deemed enemies, such as the anti-Vietnam War activist Daniel Ellsberg. Both Nixon and the institution of the Presidency had paid a high price for this assumption. But, according to the Times, since 2002 the legal checks that Congress constructed to insure that no President would repeat Nixon’s actions had been secretly ignored.

According to someone who knows Powell, his comment about the article was terse. “It’s Addington,” he said. “He doesn’t care about the Constitution.” Powell was referring to David S. Addington, Vice-President Cheney’s chief of staff and his longtime principal legal adviser. Powell’s office says that he does not recall making the statement. But his former top aide, Lawrence Wilkerson, confirms that he and Powell shared this opinion of Addington.

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more at:
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060703fa_fact1

Great article. Very sobering. The final quote is by Bruce Fein ("a Republican legal activist, who voted for Bush in both Presidential elections, and who served as associate deputy attorney general in the Reagan Justice Department"):

..."Our political heritage is to be skeptical of executive power, because, in particular, there was skepticism of King George III. But Cheney and Addington are not students of history. If they were, they’d know that the Founding Fathers would be shocked by what they’ve done."

I can see the founding fathers, spinning right now....

The colonies had been the victims(?) of salutory neglect for many, many years as long as the pine for the ships and the turpentine and the tobacco kept flowing in, nobody seemed to care very much what the colonies did. The aftermath of the Seven Years War and the gaining of all of what is now Canada to British America was also when George not merely started actually ruling the colonies, setting up royal governors and making the Americans start to pay for their "defense" against France and Spain, but also setting the line for further expansion westward to the Appalachians in the present US. This was very bothersome to the Americans, as the coastal farm land was beginning to play out. Note the change of capitol from Williamsburg to Richmond soon coming for example.
Meanwhile, back in Britain, political pundit after pundit had expoused the True Whig cause of the Protestant revolt against the Stuarts and the role of Parliament over dynasty. As long as the Hanovers played ball with the monied interests of Britain (Parliament), all was well (except for those uprisings in 1715 and 45 against the Guelphs for the Stuarts...).
Meanwhile, George came of age and had Lord Bute, his own Cheney to give him advice.
The Americans actually believed all that liberty stuff that they had read in imported volumes from Britain...the rest is history as they say.
Note the list of grievences against George Guelph and what many perceive as too similar to ignore from George Bush.

the Bush Regime compliance. No one has been charged or held accountable for these Violations. Busholini defended the Violations and holds himself and his Regime Above the Law.

impeachment.

himself to be VP. It's doubtful Bush knew anything of his history or views as it would have been one of his "gut" decisions.

for the best possible VP candidate.

Cheney then was in charge of all the other hiring.