politically and legally beleaguered White House, not to mention bitter

dajoki

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Sat Aug-19-06 08:03 PM
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politically and legally beleaguered White House, not to mention bitter

Time
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1228714,00.html

The Wiretapping Decision: Legal Blow or Political Boon?
A federal rules deals another setback to President Bush's war powers. Now comes the maneuvering

By BRIAN BENNETT AND TIMOTHY J. BURGER/WASHINGTON
Posted Thursday, Aug. 17, 2006

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales seemed to reflect the fatigue of a politically and legally beleaguered White House when he paused for a sigh as he began a press conference Thursday afternoon to respond to a federal judge's ruling that the Administration's controversial domestic wiretapping program is illegal and should be stopped immediately. He said he was "disappointed" by the decision — and he looked it.

The surprise ruling — in which Judge Anna Diggs Taylor said it was "never the intent of the framers to give the President such unfettered control" — raised new questions about the broad authority President Bush has claimed since the Sept. 11 attacks for secret new intelligence programs. Her decision came on the same day a federal jury in North Carolina convicted a former Central Intelligence Agency contract interrogator on charges of illegally beating a detainee shortly before the man died in Afghanistan in 2003. More important, the ruling followed a Supreme Court decision in June that the Administration's use of military tribunals in Guantanamo was illegal — until this week the biggest blow to Bush’s assertion of broad unilateral powers in the war on terrorism.

Attorneys for the Justice Department and the National Security Agency, the electronic eavesdropping shop, quickly won a stay allowing the NSA to continue its domestic spy program pending appeal. President Bush said in December, after disclosures in the media, that the so-called Terrorist Surveillance Program is used only to monitor calls between U.S. persons in phone contact with suspected al-Qaeda terrorists or supporters abroad. "The decision is unreasoned and not supported by any analysis," a senior, and bitter-sounding, Administration official complained to TIME. The decision most likely sent shudders through an intelligence community that runs numerous messy spy programs based on the guidance of the very Administration attorneys who had insisted the surveillance program is legal.

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How the ruling will play out politically is uncertain. Some Washington insiders expected that it would give Bush and the GOP another chance to play to his strength — waging war on terror — while appealing the ruling and seeking legislative changes to accommodate the eavesdropping program. But others said it could give Democrats yet another opening to charge that Bush ignores the law and is wielding vast power in secrecy, without legal authority or broad public support.