S.I.C. Chairman (Sen. Pat Roberts): Bush Has Authority for NSA Program

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

Sen. Roberts: Bush Has Authority for NSA Program
Friday, February 03, 2006

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,183731,00.html

WASHINGTON — Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts on Friday strongly endorsed the Bush administration's argument that the president has the authority to conduct warrantless electronic surveillance in the U.S. in pursuit of terrorists.

Presidents from George Washington to George W. Bush have intercepted communications to ascertain enemy threats to national security, Roberts, R-Kan., said in a letter to the chairman and ranking Democrat of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

"Despite legal analysis by some critics, I am confident that the president retains the constitutional authority to conduct" such spying when the primary purpose is the collection of foreign intelligence information regarding foreign powers, Roberts wrote in his 19-page letter to Sens. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. Leahy is among Democrats who have questioned President Bush's authority to conduct the domestic spying program.

Roberts' letter came the day after National Intelligence Director John Negroponte's appearance at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, where Democrats focused on questions about the legality of the National Security Agency's secret surveillance program and complained that the president had kept them in the dark about it.

[ET Awful]

1. The flaw in that argument is that "foreign power" connotes an organized

and legitimate government of a sovreign nation.

Using the Bush administrations own criteria, Al Qaeda is not such a "foreign power".

Of course this leaves out the fact that Roberts' entire argument is bullshit to begin with.

[bullimiami]

2. hey roberts, pack up your shit and go home, you just conceded control

of the country to the almighty president and declared the senate useless.

[librechik]

3. ho, ho, ho,

Roberts is a

[WCGreen]

4. There is a level of trust there....

And with this dufuss, that trust is non existant...

I don't trust he or his minions to not succumb to temptation and listen in on what his enemies are doing....

And you know what....

I don't trust Clinton, or Kerry or Clark....

Or McCain....

They are human and can easily fall prey to the temptation which power presents...

That is why we are a nation of laws....

Not men....

[rodeodance]

5. nice to know you have an opinion before you start the hearing Mr. Bob.

what good is a hearing when the chair comes out and says all is well in his opening statements.

[shance]

6. Pat Roberts is a crook. Then again Fox News is too.

As long as we give these people power and these lying networks power they will take it from us.

We need to call them on their corruption and humiliate them with the truth to such a degree what they say means nothing. They are irrelevant, which of course they are.

[emulatorloo]

7. Pat Roberts is a liar and tool of the Bush Administration

He spends 90% of his time obstructing the truth about Bushboy.