The President Is Not Above the Law

Whether Ken talks about it or not, is now immaterial. The cat is out of the bag, and impeachement is now openly discussed.

Far too early, I think. The one time impeachment was effective, was when there was a very clear need for it, and in that case, the president resigned before he could be impeached.

If a president refuses to resign, and dares Congress to impeach him, it means two things:

1. The other party has a majority in Congress.

2. There isn't a justifiable reason to impeach.

Bush's party has a majority, and it is yet to be demonstrated that Bush's offenses rise to "high crimes and misdemeanors."

 

Impeachment has been openly discussed by democrats for over two years.

The rest of your post I agree with.

It is obvious to me that a court will eventually have to rule on this issue. It will perhaps go all the way to SCOTUS.

Even if the administration is ruled against(which I don't believe will happen), it is my opinion that nothing but a cease and desist order could possibly come of it. There will have been no impeachable offense committed.

 

Secret court modified wiretap requests

WASHINGTON -- Government records show that the administration was encountering unprecedented second-guessing by the secret federal surveillance court when President Bush decided to bypass the panel and order surveillance of U.S.-based terror suspects without the court's approval.

A review of Justice Department reports to Congress shows that the 26-year-old Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court modified more wiretap requests from the Bush administration than from the four previous presidential administrations combined.

The court's repeated intervention in Bush administration wiretap requests may explain why the president decided to bypass the court nearly four years ago to launch secret National Security Agency spying on hundreds and possibly thousands of Americans and foreigners inside the United States, according to James Bamford, an acknowledged authority on the supersecret NSA, which intercepts telephone calls, e-mails, faxes and Internet communications.

 

Then comes the question, why were they modifying so many requests?

It goes to an ongoing dispute the Administration has had with the FISA court over Section 218 of the Patriot Act.
The FISA Court interpreted it one way ,and the Administration interpreted it another.

In 2002 AG John Ashcroft requested the FISA Court of Review (a 3 judge panel never used before) to resolve the issue. They ruled in favor of the Administration's interpretation.

It could be the FISA court resented the decision and decided to interfere with Administration requests as much as they could. To reinforce their objections, so to speak. For the first time ever, all requests were under the FISA court microscope.


"Section 218

Section 218 amends FISA by changing the certification requirement when the government seeks a FISA surveillance or search order. Previously, the government was required to certify that "the purpose" of the application was to obtain foreign intelligence information. After section 218, the government must certify that obtaining foreign intelligence information is "a significant purpose" of the application. This change was designed to promote information sharing between intelligence and law enforcement officials and to eliminate what has become known as the "wall" that separated law enforcement and intelligence investigations.


The FISA, passed in 1978, sets forth procedures for the conduct of electronic surveillance and physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes. Over the years, the Department of Justice interpreted FISA’s requirement that "the purpose" of collection be foreign intelligence to restrict the use of FISA collection procedures when a law enforcement investigation was involved. The restriction was designed to ensure that prosecutors and criminal investigators did not use FISA to circumvent the more rigorous warrant requirements for criminal cases. But law enforcement and foreign intelligence investigations often overlap, and enforcing this separation between intelligence and law enforcement investigations – the "wall" – inhibited coordination of these investigations and the sharing of foreign intelligence information with law enforcement officials. The change to "significant purpose" was intended to clarify that no such separation is necessary.


It is not clear whether the change in section 218 was legally necessary to eliminate the "wall." The Department of Justice argued to the FISA Court of Review in 2002 that the original FISA standard did not require the restrictions that the Department of Justice imposed over the years, and the court appears to have agreed. This leaves the precise legal effect of a sunset of section 218 somewhat murky."

 

So Bush does what must be done. Hurray for Bush, boo for the courts.

 

KenH, didn't you tell me you were not a one issue voter?

 

An interesting article that addresses some of the points mentioned [Link].

Regards,
BiR

 

"I'm not. What does that have to do with this thread?"

Am I allowed to be straight with something that you have disappointed me about -in a loving brotherly way.

 

I'll take that as you don't want me to share.

 

Thanks, nice debunking.

 

That sounds like something that should be taken to PM rather than go off on a personal tangent.

 

Well that is up to Ken, but I have not gone on a personal tangent at all. And his insistence that he is not a one issue voter is a public insistence. But I said I took it as he did not want me to share, so why are you butting in. I am not going to vote for you as "my favorite liberal" if you keep that up. (lovingly said with affection)

 

If I remember correctly( it has been awhile) you told me that you would vote for a pro-abortion candidate if they were overall the best candidate, because you did not let one issue make the decision for you. But here is only the possibility that Bush may have overstepped his authority and you have already said you would not vote for him now and you might even vote for democrats to teach the repubs a lesson and clip there wings so to speak.

I am disappointed that issue of abortion is not that important to you, but single issue of a hint that Bush went over his authority is that important that you would vote based on this single issue.

 

I don't want to go digging through all these post. I thought you indicated you hoped the demos won to straiten out the repubs arrogance over this issue and to teach them a lesson or things to that effect. I just hope if you will let a single issue of this nature decide a vote for you, you would give as much importance to abortion. But if you were not coming from this direction, I misunderstood you and you can disregard my concern.