GOP Senator Brownback: Bush’s Spying Raises Concerns

Some people need to learn how to play shutmouth.

[ January 07, 2006, 02:03 PM: Message edited by: OldRegular ]

 

Yes, I suppose you're right... I mean when someone has their own opinion that doesn't fall in Party lines, then they really do need to shut up.

I guess, you would say that Joe Liberman needs to plat shutmouth too huh? I mean since his opinion isn't one that always lines up with his party....


I for one am glad to see people like Liberman AND Brownback questioning things and NOT going along with it because it's status quo.

We need more people like them in Congress!

Jamie

 

At least before they shoot off their mouth they need to learn to read. That goes for people on this Forum.

I post for the umpteenth time:

The President has done nothing illegal as noted in the initial Times article:

The New York Times, which first disclosed the existence of the NSA program last week, also cited unnamed sources who said the administration used two other opinions to justify its actions. One was embedded in a public Justice Department brief from 2002 and another was in a 2002 opinion issued by the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review that oversees the secretive court that usually deals with terror-related wiretap requests.

In 2002, that FISA review court upheld the president's warrantless search powers, referencing a 1980 Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals decision. That court held that "the president did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information. ... We take for granted that the president does have that authority and, assuming that is so, FISA could not encroach on the president’s constitutional power," wrote the court.

"The Foreign Intelligence Court of Review, which is the highest court that's looked at these questions, has said that the president has the inherent constitutional authority to use electronic surveillance to collect foreign intelligence and Congress cannot take away that constitutional authority. That's a pretty good argument," Bryan Cunningham, former National Security Council legal adviser, told FOX News.

Ref:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,179323,00.html

 

It is my opinion that Bush does not need the statutory authority Congress has given him and it was a mistake to go there.

He has plenty of Constitutional authority for his actions in order to protect this nation in time of war.

 

You know OldRegular, You posting the same time over and over again will not make it true, fact, or right.


Sorry, I know you think that "spinning" a story long enough with the same information over and over again will eventually make it ok, it don't work that way.

This story shows that there are some valid concerns about what is and has gone on.

Analysts: Bush spying rationale legally shaky


Now, I am not saying it's RIGHT or WRONG... but I am smart enough to know that these things are NEVER the way they seem.. Only AFTER we have had time to look into them will we know the truth.

Again, NNE knows if it's legal or not, but that doesn't stop everyone from running and jumping to conclusions.

So, please stop Coping the Pasting the SAME article over and over again thinking that it's helping your cause.

Jamie

 

If this is an honest opinion, then when a Democrat or Independant is in office, you won't have a problem with them having the same "authority" right?

Jamie

 

Congress has the authority to make war not the President. In a sense it is Congress that empowers the President to be Commander and Chief.

 

If this is an honest opinion, then when a Democrat or Independant is in office, you won't have a problem with them having the same "authority" right?

Jamie </font>[/QUOTE]Why would I? Democrats have led us during wartime before. Much of the legal precedence used to define the president's powers come from decisions made by FDR. Of course, democrats were not led by radical fringe groups devoted to destroying America like they are now, but What checks and balances we have will handle whatever comes up.

When at war, the President needs to be able to lead without being micromanaged by Congress. Congress's only real control over the President's warfighting powers is the power of the purse. No war can be faught without funds.

Thank God our forefathers realized we can't be led by committee during a war.

 

You obviously are not reading the post which refers to a 1980 Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals decision. That court held that "the president did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information....

Until that decision is over turned by the Supreme Court it is still valid! The FISA court recognized this!

 

And you obviously not reading period.

You have your mind made up, what is done has just cause, and you think it should be done more and more without fail.

That's ok.. It's your opinion. *I* however don't know if it's RIGHT or WRONG, and I am not going to jump to conclusions like you.

I will wait and see what is found in the hearings/debates.

I'm sorry you're not openminded enough to know that EVERYTHING they feed you isn't true, and sometimes you have to just wait and see BEFORE having an opinion set in stone.

Jamie

 

The they I am talking about is the news media and other sources of "news worthy" information.

It doesn't matter if they slant Right or Left, the outcome is the SAME. EVERYTHING they feed you isn't always true.


As far as the Times being a Bible and such... Well I don't consider it my Bible, I don't consider ANY news source a Bible. I listen, and wait for the results before I pounce with an opinion in stone.

It seems to me, that you seem to think highly of Fox news... I suppose you could say that some people think Fox news or even WND is the Bible of some people on the Right.

Jamie

 

At least before they shoot off their mouth they need to learn to read. That goes for people on this Forum.

I post for the umpteenth time:

The President has done nothing illegal as noted in the initial Times article:

The New York Times, which first disclosed the existence of the NSA program last week, also cited unnamed sources who said the administration used two other opinions to justify its actions. One was embedded in a public Justice Department brief from 2002 and another was in a 2002 opinion issued by the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review that oversees the secretive court that usually deals with terror-related wiretap requests.

In 2002, that FISA review court upheld the president's warrantless search powers, referencing a 1980 Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals decision. That court held that "the president did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information. ... We take for granted that the president does have that authority and, assuming that is so, FISA could not encroach on the president’s constitutional power," wrote the court.

"The Foreign Intelligence Court of Review, which is the highest court that's looked at these questions, has said that the president has the inherent constitutional authority to use electronic surveillance to collect foreign intelligence and Congress cannot take away that constitutional authority. That's a pretty good argument," Bryan Cunningham, former National Security Council legal adviser, told FOX News.

Ref:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,179323,00.html </font>[/QUOTE]FOX's article says:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,179323,00.html

On Tuesday, White House spokesman Scott McClellan repeated the legal underpinnings used to justify the "signals intelligence."
"Under Article 2 of the Constitution, as commander in chief, the president has that authority. The president has the authority under the congressional authorization that was passed and clearly stated that, quote, 'The president is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force.' This was under Section 2 in the authorization for the United States Armed Forces," McClellan said.
"It is limited to people who have — one of the parties to the communication [who has] a clear connection to Al Qaeda or terrorist organizations and one of the parties [who] is operating outside of the United States. And I think that's important for people to know, because there's been some suggestions that it's spying inside the U.S. That's not the case," the press secretary added.

The major point of contention concerns wiretaps within the U.S. and especially those which are unrelated to terrorism but directed at the administrtation's political enemies like anti-war activists.

As usual, FOX's perspective is biased and not relevant.

 

SAN,

I disagree with wiretapping dissenters like anti-war activists but it has been asked, and I've still not seen it, whether there is evidence that was done. If it is true, as McClellan says, that the wiretaps are on conversations that include those with identified connections to al Qaeda, then why all this? I've long believed that Ken doesn't carry an animus toward Bush, but for someeone who qualifies many of his statements about this with "alleged" (which is an honorable thing to do), this dead horse has been stood back up on his four legs and shot over and over with Ken's repeated threads on this subject.

 

You are wrong. Read the Constitution, Article 2, Section 2.

 

CONSTITUTIONAL LAW: Walking on thin constitutional ice
By Andrew P. Napolitano
12/26/2005

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/editorialcommentary/story/74669CA4ED231397862570E10037E690?OpenDocument

President Bush has admitted authorizing the National Security Agency to spy on Americans without first obtaining search warrants from federal judges. But his forceful defense is legally erroneous, and it constitutes an assault on basic American values and core constitutional liberties. His steadfast assertion that he will continue to do so is utterly lawless.

The President's job is to support the Constitution and to enforce federal laws faithfully. In this case, he has done neither.

When the government wishes to search or seize a tangible thing - or a conversation - the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution requires it to present to a judge evidence of probable cause of criminal activity on the part of the person whose papers, things or conversations it wants to search. The courts that hear search warrant applications are available around the clock and meet in secret. If they find that probable cause exists, they issue the warrant. If they don't, they decline to issue it.

This procedure reinforces the uniquely American value of putting a neutral judge between the government and its domestic targets to restrain the government, no matter how odious the target. We have given the government a monopoly on the use of force. Like all monopolies, it requires restraint, and the instrument of restraint is the Fourth Amendment.

When President Nixon claimed in 1970 that he had the inherent power to wiretap antiwar protestors without search warrants for national security reasons, the Supreme Court rejected his argument unanimously. Indeed, the House Judiciary Committee determined that by directing or authorizing electronic surveillance without search warrants, Nixon disregarded the constitutional rights of American citizens; it voted an article of impeachment against him for doing so.

In reaction to Nixon's unlawful behavior, Congress wrote two new laws. One was the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). This law made it easier to wiretap foreign persons by lowering the judicial threshold from probable cause of a crime to probable cause of "foreign agency." But FISA did not - and could not - change the constitutionally-mandated standard for search warrants of Americans: probable cause of criminality.

Congress also enacted a new anti-wiretapping law. This made it a felony - punishable by five years in a federal prison for each offense - for anyone under color of law to authorize or install a wiretap on an American without a search warrant issued by a judge. President Bush claims that Congress, in effect, repealed the anti-wiretapping statute, for him and him alone, when it authorized him to use force against those who facilitated the 9/11 attacks.

This is utter nonsense. A sitting Congress can repeal a law written by a previous one, but it is a given principle of law that it must do so specifically and directly in order for us to know what the law is. Never in American history has there been a repeal by implication, one with no reference to the statute allegedly repealed, one granted to one person under one set of circumstances. It is not likely to be upheld in any court. The president's lawyers know this, but we do not know if they told him.

The president has also claimed that he has the inherent power to abrogate long-standing criminal law in his capacity as commander in chief. When he claimed that he could lock up Americans in solitary confinement and throw away the key just by declaring them "enemy combatants" and that such declarations were immune from judicial review, the Supreme Court rejected his arguments by a vote of 8 to 1, and reminded him that he, like all Americans, is subject to the Constitution.

Why would a president who has sworn to uphold all parts of the Constitution and enforce all the federal laws, whether he finds them convenient or not, authorize such direct violations of both? Why would he attempt to nullify the Fourth Amendment's guaranteed right of privacy on which so much public, legal and social policy is based?

The inescapable conclusion is that President Bush does not recognize the constitutional limitations imposed on his office. His only concern is victory over "the enemy."

In a famous Supreme Court dissent, Justice Louis Brandeis foresaw the articulation by a later generation of justices of the right to privacy. "The makers of our Constitution," he wrote, ". . . conferred, as against the government, the right to be let alone - the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men." The Fourth Amendment embodies this natural right. It is the lynchpin not only of our personal privacy but also our individual dignity. No president and no Congress can violate it with impunity.

Andrew P. Napolitano, a former judge of the Superior Court of New Jersey, is the senior judicial analyst at Fox News Channel and the author of "Constitutional Chaos: What Happens When the Government Breaks Its Own Laws" (Nelson Current, 2004).

 

But they didn't follow the Constitutional requirements to create a "time of war". In this "time of war", who is it that we are at war with? What nation was war declared on? Or, is this an unending war with a tactic that the enemy will use untill the end of the earth? The "war on terror" will last for ever, does that mean our nation is "in a time of war" forever?

 

That would not apply to domestic intelligence information - which is what the concern is about. </font>[/QUOTE]You accusation is baseless at this time. The NSA listened in on conversations between people in this country and people in foreign countries. That, in case you are not aware, is gathering foreign intelligence. Also if they listened to the conversation between foreign nationals located in this country that would also qualify.