Bush says spying legal, Legal Scholars say he’s lying again

[Marleyb]

Just because Bush says his domestic spying program is legal and justified does not make it so. While the Constitutional scholars didn’t say, "he’s lying", they did say that his program is "blatantly unlawful" - which is basically calling him a liar, diplomatically.

that Mr. Bush’s warrantless domestic wiretapping program is legal, as contended by his lawyers - simply cannot be taken seriously.


On the Necessity of Impeachment:

U. Chicago Law Professor Geoffrey Stone, Georgetown U. Law Professor David Cole, and U. Massachusetts Law School Dean Lawrence Velvel - agree: "Some legal questions are hard. This one is not. Mr. Bush’s authorizing of the NSA to spy on Americans is blatantly unlawful and unconstitutional."

But is it an impeachable offense? Mr. Bush has committed an impeachable offense.
Mr. Bush is the first president ever to admit that he committed an impeachable offense.

The opposite opinion - that Mr. Bush’s warrantless domestic wiretapping program is legal, as contended by his lawyers - simply cannot be taken seriously. Indeed, it’s so erroneous that "it’s not even close."

Above article has compiled a list of over 90 impeachment stories written in the last month.

14 Constitutional Scholars agree that Bush broke the law.

In conclusion, the DOJ letter fails to offer a plausible legal defense of the NSA domestic spying program… But it is also beyond dispute that, in such a democracy, the President cannot simply violate criminal laws behind closed doors because he deems them obsolete or impracticable.

Harvard Law Prof. Laurence Tribe concludes

that the NSA spying is "as grave an abuse of executive authority as I can recall ever having studied."

Bush & Cheney Lied to start a war, the Scholars did not.
Bush & Cheney say the spying is legal, the Scholars do not.

Who is more believeable, the Constitutional scholars that say 'it’s not even close’ or Bush that says, 'of course it’s legal’.

Where the f*$k is Congress?

Impeach Bush and Cheney- Congress too if they fail to act.
http://uruknet.info/?p=19603&hd=0&size=1&l=x

http://neworleans.indymedia.org/uploads/2006/01/j31.pdf

[The Backlash Cometh]

1. Is anybody else getting the feeling that Bush thinks this way because

this is the way our intelligence agencies have been operating for decades? Rogue departments that have been under control of a cabal of men, like Daddy Bush, Baker and Rumsfeld? Kissinger too?

[swag]

2. Here's a letter from a prominent Constitutional scholars to Congress:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18650

Dear Members of Congress:

We are scholars of constitutional law and former government officials. We write in our individual capacities as citizens concerned by the Bush administration's National Security Agency domestic spying program, as reported in The New York Times, and in particular to respond to the Justice Department's December 22, 2005, letter to the majority and minority leaders of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees setting forth the administration's defense of the program.<1> Although the program's secrecy prevents us from being privy to all of its details, the Justice Department's defense of what it concedes was secret and warrantless electronic surveillance of persons within the United States fails to identify any plausible legal authority for such surveillance. Accordingly the program appears on its face to violate existing law.

The basic legal question here is not new. In 1978, after an extensive investigation of the privacy violations associated with foreign intelligence surveillance programs, Congress and the President enacted the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Pub. L. 95-511, 92 Stat. 1783. FISA comprehensively regulates electronic surveillance within the United States, striking a careful balance between protecting civil liberties and preserving the "vitally important government purpose" of obtaining valuable intelligence in order to safeguard national security. S. Rep. No. 95-604, pt. 1, at 9 (1977).

With minor exceptions, FISA authorizes electronic surveillance only upon certain specified showings, and only if approved by a court. The statute specifically allows for warrantless wartime domestic electronic surveillance—but only for the first fifteen days of a war. 50 U.S.C. § 1811. It makes criminal any electronic surveillance not authorized by statute, id. § 1809; and it expressly establishes FISA and specified provisions of the federal criminal code (which govern wiretaps for criminal investigation) as the "exclusive means by which electronic surveillance...may be conducted," 18 U.S.C. § 2511(2)(f) (emphasis added).<2>

The Department of Justice concedes that the NSA program was not authorized by any of the above provisions. It maintains, however, that the program did not violate existing law because Congress implicitly authorized the NSA program when it enacted the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) against al-Qaeda, Pub. L. No. 107-40, 115 Stat. 224 (2001). But the AUMF cannot reasonably be construed to implicitly authorize warrantless electronic surveillance in the United States during wartime, where Congress has expressly and specifically addressed that precise question in FISA and limited any such warrantless surveillance to the first fifteen days of war.

The DOJ also invokes the President's inherent constitutional authority as Commander in Chief to collect "signals intelligence" targeted at the enemy, and maintains that construing FISA to prohibit the President's actions would raise constitutional questions. But even conceding that the President in his role as Commander in Chief may generally collect "signals intelligence" on the enemy abroad, Congress indisputably has authority to regulate electronic surveillance within the United States, as it has done in FISA. Where Congress has so regulated, the President can act in contravention of statute only if his authority is exclusive, that is, not subject to the check of statutory regulation. The DOJ letter pointedly does not make that extraordinary claim.

. . . more

[madrchsod]

3. congress?

you have to be kidding because they certainly are not going to do anything about this. if it`s not about a blow job between consenting adults it doesn`t rate as an impeachment.

[Marleyb]

5. we have to demand that they do something!

[peacetalksforall]

4. I find that I've only heard one person say it's legal - Yoo. The usual

defenders from the Federalist Society, Olson-Meese-Grey - the ones who appear on tv shows, are missing. This is probably because they will BE or will guide the defense as they were the ones who figured out how they could make it legal in their eyes? I doubt if Harriet and Al came up with this on their own.

How many lawyers worked to authorize it? How many lawyers will work to defend George and Dick?

It's no wonder George gives speeches that are blaringly deficient in substance, articulation, and delivery making them trite, stumbling, and embarassing. He doesn't have the brain power to balance what he can say and not say. One thing he said was right on - his remarks about dictatorships.