Chertoff: Bush Admin Does Not Have ENOUGH Authority

[kpete]

Michael Chertoff, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, stopped short of calling for immediate changes, noting there might be constitutional barriers to the type of wide police powers the British had in apprehending suspects in the plot to blow up airliners headed to the U.S.

But Chertoff made clear his belief that wider authority could thwart future attacks at a time when Congress is reviewing the proper scope of the Bush administration's executive powers for its warrantless eavesdropping program and military tribunals for detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"What helped the British in this case is the ability to be nimble, to be fast, to be flexible, to operate based on fast-moving information," he said. "We have to make sure our legal system allows us to do that. It's not like the 20th century, where you had time to get warrants."


The Bush administration has pushed for greater executive authority in the war on terror, leading it to create a warrantless eavesdropping program, hold suspects who are deemed as "enemy combatants" for long periods and establish a military tribunal system for detainees that affords defendants fewer rights than traditional courts-martial.

http://www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2006/08/13/ap/us/d8jfm9og2.txt

[wtmusic]

1. They can get retroactive warrants, so time is not an issue,

and so Chertoff is 100% full of shit.

[femmedem]

2. Fast? Nimble? They were monitoring these guys for how long?

Long enough to get a warrant, I dare say.

[kentuck]

3. I heard that BS...

He was saying that if we didn't have all the laws and stuff preventing us from doing a lot of things, we could be as good as the British. Seems that I recall they broke every law and every rule they did not like? So what's was hindering them??

[WiseButAngrySara]

4. That Katrina disaster whore almost makes me sicker than Cheney.

The man is evil personified. He reminds me of Hitler.

[seemslikeadream]

8. THE KATRINA DISASTER

[WiseButAngrySara]

9. OMG! What a living nightmare. I cry just remembering it, and it's

still 'a living nightmare' ...all those displaced people and no one in this administration seems to give a D___! No wonder they can so easilly turn a blind eye to the dislaced Lebonnese. They really don't care, and that is precisely why they are evil and should not be representing the very people they hate.

[WiseButAngrySara]

5. Heil Hitler B* and Chertoff! ....n/t

[seemslikeadream]

6. Preserving liberty may require the rule of a single leader – a dictator

How would the neocon think tanks view martial law? Michael Ledeen, a fellow of the American Enterprise Institute, and close and trusted White House adviser, has this to say on p. 173 of his book Machiavelli on Modern Leadership: Why Machiavelli’s Iron Rules Are As Timely and Important Today As Five Centuries Ago: “Paradoxically, preserving liberty may require the rule of a single leader – a dictator – willing to use those dreaded 'extraordinary measures,' which few know how, or are willing, to employ."

[spindrifter]

7. Bullcrap, BushCo!

The British have their own issues that prevent them from acting totally unilaterally and that protect their people. The U.S. might be more able to anticipate and avoid if we had fewer croneys and incompetents in positions that make decisions. If BushCo wasn't so bound up with efforts to create the Unitary Executive, it might be able to take advantage of alliances that it could forge at the national and local levels. The sooner they are out, the more able we will be to take care of our national security needs.

[Hubert Flottz]

10. This man is as nasty as he looks!

Chertoff: Kerik without the sex

snip...

It was Chertoff, as assistant atttorney general overseeing the initial 9/11 probe, who OK'ed and then defended the detention of hundreds of "material witnesses" of Arab descent -- even though it would later be determined that none -- that's right, none -- of the detainees had anything to do with the terrorist attacks of 2001.

Chartoff's actions during this period would later be roundly criticized in a report from the Justice Department's own Inspector General. It found that immigrants were rounded up in an "indiscriminate and haphazard manner," held for months while denied access to attorneys and sometimes mistreated behind bars.

The report noted that Chertoff "urged immigration officials to 'hold these people until we find out what's going on,' despite the fact that many had been swept up and detained on minor immigration charges."

Chertoff also pushed prosecutors and the FBI into greatly expanded use of domestic surveillance. In November 2002, according to this report, he "defended the need for government agencies to aggregate large amounts of personal information in computer databases for both law enforcement and national security purposes." More...

http://www.pnionline.com/dnblog/extra/archives/001326.html

He wants to help Cheney/Spector's new CYA domestic surveillance scam pass the smell test in congress.

[Trillo]

11. Authority is just like Money to these shills:

they never have enough money or authority, no matter how much they have.