CNN dumps three articles on Bush: Has Bush gone too far? (two others)

[ProSense]

Has Bush gone too far?

By RICHARD LACAYO

Tuesday, January 3, 2006; Posted: 3:49 p.m. EST (20:49 GMT)


In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, White House officials were haunted by two questions. Were there other terrorists lying in wait within the U.S.? And, given how freely the 19 hijackers had been able to operate before they acted, how would we know where to find them? It didn't take long before an aggressive idea emerged from the circle of Administration hawks. Liberalize the rules for domestic spying, they urged. Free the National Security Agency (NSA) to use its powerful listening technology to eavesdrop on terrorist suspects on U.S. soil without having to seek a warrant for every phone number it tracked. But because of a 1978 law that forbids the NSA to conduct no-warrant surveillance inside the U.S., the new policy would require one of two steps. The first was to revise the law. The other was to ignore it.

In the end, George Bush tried the first. When that failed, he opted for the second. In 2002 he issued a secret Executive Order to allow the NSA to eavesdrop without a warrant on phone conversations, e-mail and other electronic communications, even when at least one party to the exchange was in the U.S.--the circumstance that would ordinarily trigger the warrant requirement. For four years, Bush's decision remained a closely guarded secret. Because the NSA program was so sensitive, Administration officials tell TIME, the "lawyers' group," an organization of fewer than half a dozen government attorneys the National Security Council convenes to review top-secret intelligence programs, was bypassed. Instead, the legal vetting was given to Alberto Gonzales, then White House counsel. In the weeks since December 16, when the program was disclosed by the New York Times, it has set off a ferocious debate in Washington and around the country about how the rule of law should constrain the war on terrorism.

That development ensures that the President will start the new year preoccupied for a while with a fight over whether his responsibility to prevent another attack gave him the power to push aside an act of Congress--or, to use the terms of his harshest critics, to break the law. Bush and his supporters say that the President has the power to take extraordinary steps to protect the nation and that sometimes nothing less will do. His opponents say that the war on terrorism can be fought just as well, if not better, without novel interpretations of the law and that the White House reasoning sounds all too much like Richard Nixon's famous exercise in Oval Office solipsism: "When the President does it, that means that it is not illegal."

This much you can count on: the fallout from exposure of the NSA surveillance program will be with us for months to come. Republican Arlen Specter, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has already announced his intention to start hearings this month to find out just what the NSA is up to and whether acting without warrants was really necessary. In addition, the House and Senate Intelligence Committees are almost certain to make deeper inquiries. Meanwhile, the Justice Department is launching an investigation of its own, into how word of the secret program was leaked to the Times. Justice officials have refused to say whether the overall legality of the NSA program will also be investigated.

more...

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/01/03/bush.nsa.tm/

[AtomicKitten]

1. Q/Why didn't they investigate the NSA leak a year ago?

They knew the NY Times had the story. IMO it's just posturing.

Reporters inherently don't like to be told what to write or not to write. It's the megacorportions that own these media outlets that are kowtowing to the White House.

[Chiyo-chichi]

3. Very good question.

"Why didn't they investigate the NSA leak a year ago?"

They knew a year ago that this leak had occurred . Everyone knows that when time passes after the comission of a crime, you are less likely to find the perpetrators. They COULD have "quietly" investigated the leak.

It's more of the same old BS from the WH and the Rethugs.

[rodeodance]

2. let the good times roll.

[HereSince1628]

4. Expect the the public to be denied access to the hearings.

Bush/Cheney will for sure claim national security interests, and all we may ever know is that the intelligence committees looked into it.

[Supersedeas]

5. Arlen Specter is in the center of the storm -- this can not go public

[ProSense]

6. Bush clearly broke the law.

In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, White House officials were haunted by two questions. Were there other terrorists lying in wait within the U.S.? And, given how freely the 19 hijackers had been able to operate before they acted, how would we know where to find them? It didn't take long before an aggressive idea emerged from the circle of Administration hawks. Liberalize the rules for domestic spying, they urged. Free the National Security Agency (NSA) to use its powerful listening technology to eavesdrop on terrorist suspects on U.S. soil without having to seek a warrant for every phone number it tracked. But because of a 1978 law that forbids the NSA to conduct no-warrant surveillance inside the U.S., the new policy would require one of two steps. The first was to revise the law. The other was to ignore it.

In the end, George Bush tried the first. When that failed, he opted for the second. In 2002 he issued a secret Executive Order to allow the NSA to eavesdrop without a warrant on phone conversations, e-mail and other electronic communications, even when at least one party to the exchange was in the U.S.--the circumstance that would ordinarily trigger the warrant requirement. For four years, Bush's decision remained a closely guarded secret. Because the NSA program was so sensitive, Administration officials tell TIME, the "lawyers' group," an organization of fewer than half a dozen government attorneys the National Security Council convenes to review top-secret intelligence programs, was bypassed. Instead, the legal vetting was given to Alberto Gonzales, then White House counsel. In the weeks since December 16, when the program was disclosed by the New York Times, it has set off a ferocious debate in Washington and around the country about how the rule of law should constrain the war on terrorism.

Bush clearly broke the law.

More broadly, the White House says Congress implicitly gave Bush the power to approve the no-warrant wiretaps in a resolution it passed on Sept. 14, 2001. That measure authorized the President to use "all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons" involved in the 9/11 attacks. Tom Daschle, then the Senate Democratic majority leader, says the Administration knows it did not have that implicit authority because White House officials had sought unsuccessfully to get congressional leaders to include explicit language approving no-warrant wiretaps in the resolution. Attorney General Gonzales says the Administration decided to go forward with the program anyway because it was convinced that the President possessed the inherent power to act.

Clearly!

There will be a lot of constitutional issues under discussion in weeks to come because the war on terrorism has the potential to embed itself deeply into our legal norms. Conventional wars, against nation-states that can be plainly identified and defeated, have a clear aim in sight. The fight against endlessly shape-shifting terrorist groups is more open-ended. So when we talk about trade-offs between freedom and security, it's a mistake to assume they will be short-term adjustments. The emergency powers that we agree to now may well become the American way for years. We may still agree to them, but it's essential to know exactly what costs they come with.

He broke the law and ignore the damn piece of paper.

[ProSense]

7. I certainly hope they push for hearings. n/t