Came across this comment after the news article relating to the soon-to-be FISA scandal, that's what it is to put it mildly, and found it interesting. There are four or five paragraphs that precede what I have posted which you can read at the link below in the comments section. There are only a handful of comments. The first link will take you directly to the entire comment.
NOT A PROFILE IN COURAGE
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The rebuttal to an excess of Banana Republic Dictator Theater can be found in the Supreme Court decision written by Justice Robert Jackson in the 1952 case of YOUNGSTOWN SHEET AND TUBE CO. v. SAWYER: " When the President takes measures incompatible with the expressed or implied will of Congress, his power is at its lowest ebb, for then he can rely only upon his own constitutional powers minus any constitutional powers of Congress over the matter. Courts can sustain exclusive presidential control in such a case only by disabling the Congress from acting upon the subject. Presidential claim to a power at once so conclusive and preclusive must be scrutinized with caution, for what is at stake is the equilibrium established by our constitutional system." From a practical standpoint, the Constitution is whatever the Supreme Court says it is, but an assertion by the President that he is entitled to engage in massive electronic surveillance without warrants, involving citizens and other legal residents of the United States, is contrary to the plain meaning of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution even if FISA is rewritten to authorize such surveillance and even if the Supreme Court were to uphold such a revision of FISA.
We used to be the land of the free and the home of the brave, but now we are the land of "nine-eleven changed everything". There are few transgressions of the President which are not excused by fear-mongering with respect to our so-called "war on terror", and this is a major impediment to a rational discussion of the limits on the President's authority and our professed adherence to the rule of law. The President's profligate use of signing statements to distort the meaning of various pieces of legislation is ample evidence that the President cannot be entrusted with poorly-defined powers which are prone to abuse. On May 17, 2002, the FISA Court released an opinion which stated that FBI and Justice Department officials had supplied erroneous information to the court in more than 75 applications for search warrants and wiretaps, including one signed by then-FBI Director Louis J. Freeh. In March 2007, the Inspector General for the Department of Justice released a report confirming extensive misuse of National Security Letters in a sample of four FBI field offices, and an internal audit by the FBI confirmed that the problem was far more extensive than it previously had been thought to be. The discovery several months ago that the CIA Director is investigating the CIA Inspector General is a good example of why a weasel cannot be left alone to guard the chicken coop.
Protecting the lives of our fellow citizens is not a goal which should be dismissed casually, but the threat of a terrorist attack is relatively insignificant when compared to some other threats in which we actually participate willingly or threats that we take for granted. Cigarette smoking causes over 400,000 deaths each year, and alcohol-related deaths exceed 75,000 each year, but the two most destructive drugs in the United States are legal, and Prohibition was a dismal failure due to non-compliance by the public. We know that reducing the speed limit on our highways would save many thousands of lives every year, but the driving public would oppose such a policy because it would cause too much inconvenience. Obesity-related illnesses have become a major cause of premature deaths in the United States, but people are not afraid of food. Approximately 30,000 people are killed each year in the United States by citizens and other legal residents using guns, but most people accept that disarming the populace is unconstitutional and unrealistic (at least while Charlton Heston is still living). Al-Qaida in Iraq is less dangerous to us than the amorphous army of drunk drivers in the United States. It is likely that terrorists will occasionally succeed in killing some people in the United States, and we should do everything practical that is allowed within our Constitution to prevent such deaths, but we should not bargain away our inalienable rights due to fears which are disproportionate to the actual threat.
The right of "habeas corpus" which protects people against unlawful and arbitrary detention has been one of the most fundamental principles of any free society since King John was forced by his nobles to sign the Magna Carta. Section 9 of Article I of the United States Constitution states: "The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it." Despite the fact that various aspects related to the right of "habeas corpus" are delineated in the Fourth, Fifth and (most specifically) Sixth Amendments to the Constitution, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales stated in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on January 17, 2007 that the Constitution does not guarantee the right of "habeas corpus" to every United States citizen or resident. Although President Lincoln suspended the right of "habeas corpus" selectively during the Civil War (as did Jefferson Davis in the Confederacy), this course of action was quite limited in scope with respect to the existing danger, and the suspension of these rights was very limited in duration. However, our so-called "war on terror" is an endless war, and therefore we would be wise not to jettison essential elements of our Constitution because the thought of Islamic terrorists induces us to wet our pants. Unfortunately, there are many politicians who are betting that they will not pay any political price by trading away parts of our Constitution in return for votes from a cowering public.
(1) Bend over; (2) Put your head between your legs; (3) Kiss your right to privacy goodbye. This was the new order of things as outlined in a speech by Donald Kerr, Principal Deputy Director of the Office of National Intelligence, on October 23, 2007 at the fourth annual Geospatial Intelligence Symposium in San Antonio, Texas. With reference to Internet sites like Myspace and Facebook, Mr. Kerr said that Americans essentially are giving up privacy anyway by posting personal information on such social networking sites. Mr. Kerr, age 68, stated that the two most recent generations have very different ideas about what is essential privacy and about what they would wish to protect concerning their lives and affairs. Therefore, Mr. Kerr concluded that anyone who has typed his/her name on "Google" understands that protecting privacy from our own government is not a fight which can be won, and (he really said this) "it's not for us to inflict one size fits all". The "greatest generation" and the baby boomers must now apologize for inflicting the Bill of Rights on our younger generations. If I understand Mr. Kerr's spurious argument correctly (and I do), he thinks it is a waste of time and energy to try to save the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution because Generation X and Generation Y have chosen to post their lives on the Internet. This is a timely reminder that a fool and his Constitution are soon parted.
Posted by: Blaine Kinsey | February 12, 2008 4:20 PM
http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/politics/blog/2008/02/fisa_bill_poised_to_pass_senat.html#comment-2340620FISA bill poised to pass Senate
by James Oliphant
Sen. Russ Feingold is standing on the floor of the Senate right now and he isn't happy.
The Democrat from Wisconsin has had a rough day. The effort of Feingold and his allies to amend the Protect America Act has largely failed on a grand scale.
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http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/politics/blog/2008/02/fisa_bill_poised_to_pass_senat.html
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