Bush On NSA Spying: “If Somebody From al-Qaida Is Calling You, We’d Like To Know Why”
This is why I love this President:
President George W. Bush on Sunday strongly defended his domestic spying program, saying it’s a limited initiative that tracks only incoming calls to the United States.
“It’s seems logical to me that if we know there’s a phone number associated with al-Qaida or an al-Qaida affiliate and they’re making phone calls, it makes sense to find out why,” Bush said. “They attacked us before, they’ll attack us again.”
Bush spoke to reporters at Brooke Army Medical Center where he was visiting wounded troops. He said the leak of information about the secret order to eavesdrop on Americans with suspected ties to terrorists causes “great harm to the nation.”
Asked how he responds to Americans worried about violations of their privacy, he said, “If somebody from al-Qaida is calling you, we’d like to know why.”
The president said that he is conscious of people’s civil liberties.
“This is a limited program designed to prevent attacks on the United States of America and, I repeat, limited,” he said. “I think most Americans understand the need to find out what the enemy’s thinking.”
I do, too, Mr. President; if my friends on the Left want to pursue impeachment (I’ve been very open in admitting the questions regarding the legality of the program), let them do so. I think they will regret it, but it is their right.
However, at the risk of beating the same drum repeatedly, forget Bush for a moment; if the program does what he says it does, and if it’s not legal, shouldn’t it be? The problem of terrorism will outlive this presidency, after all…
35 Responses to “Bush On NSA Spying: “If Somebody From al-Qaida Is Calling You, We’d Like To Know Why””
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January 1st, 2006 at 4:12 pm
But Bush can monitor al Qaeda’s calls to the US right now, legally, under FISA! He just needs to get a warrant within 72 hours. And do you really think this request would be denied?
And how do we know the illegal spy program is “limited”? Because Bush says so? The same guy who promised there would be no spying without warrants? Puh-lease.
The fact of the matter is that a limited program targetting al Qaeda agents calling to the US could easily be managed under current FISA rules.
January 1st, 2006 at 4:21 pm
Well, we’ll see; as I’ve stated elsewhere, I’m convinced there’s more to the program, as well, including, of course, the data-mining aspect. Still, I think this is a preview of the sort of argument that will make impeachment (at least on this issue) a political impossibility, regardless of the legality…
January 1st, 2006 at 4:59 pm
Many terrorism experts agree that the 72 - hour wait is not effective in surveillance techniques regarding most electronic communications, particularly when the target has ample opportunity to change his mode of communications instantly.
The initiative always favors the quick responder to such events, and unnecessary delay often hinders effective prosecution of suspects during times of war.
January 1st, 2006 at 5:17 pm
There has been plenty of information around about the NSA and the Echelon system for years now. It just has never attracted the attention of the mainstream media and public up until this point. It seems almost silly to me that people are just now concerned or worried about this.
Yes, I think domestic spying in this case is illegal. The FBI has been and still is solely responsible for domestic intelligence - not the Pentagon, and not the NSA. The United States is not East Germany and frankly I think we deserve something a little bit better.
Now, the DOJ has launched an investigation into who leaked the information to the media. I feel that this is a classic whistleblower case and whoever it was deserves whistleblower protection. Not to go to prison for something others should be going to prison for.
The goal of terrorism is to generate fear. This fear leads to the government promising to do more to protect us. In order to do so, liberties have to be sacrificed. In my opinion, the government will ultimately never be completely able to protect us against terrorism or any other threat. Its just one of the little dangers of living in the world today.
The price of safety is liberty. The only decision that you and the American public have to decide is how many of those freedoms you are willing to give up in order to feel safe. Human nature generally causes people to look out for themselves and to seek one’s own personal interests over the good of all. People count on elected officials like the president and congress to “do the right thing,” and not abuse their position. I’m not an optimistic person and I have a very cynnical view of government. I feel that if they are given a power they will more than likely misuse or abuse that power. The executive branch has gained an enormous amount of power in the past 5 years. Domestic spying is the first link in the chain toward suppressing political opposition and becoming a police-state. I might sound like a conspiracy or doomsday monger, but I think it is a very realistic possibility. It has happened before elsewhere in the world and it can happen here just as easily.
I’m starting to rant so I’ll just make one last comment: I’d rather be killed by a car bomb than lose my freedoms so I can feel pseudo-safe.
January 1st, 2006 at 5:31 pm
Hokie Explorer, thanks for the comments; I respect your opinion and appreciate your clear convictions.
I’m certainly not unaware of the issues you raise, nor am I unconcerned. I’m trying to keep an open mind about this, until we know more. I think there is a level of freedom we all give up to live in a society, and I think there needs to be (and there increasingly is) a national debate about where that level is.
January 1st, 2006 at 7:30 pm
So the President shamelessly misrepresents the nature and scope of this program of large-scale illegal wiretapping, and that’s why you “love this President”?
Would you love him less if, for once, he levelled with the American people?
What “he says it does” is already legal under FISA. What it actually does is quite another matter [the lie that it applied to only inbound phone calls was quickly corrected by White House officials].
Should it be legal? I dunno Mark. How do you feel about the Government recording your phone calls, reading your email and monitoring your websurfing traffic?
If your answer is “Why would they be interested in me? I’m no terrorist.” then I would contend that you are sadly naive about the way these things work.
Since you asked me the question earlier, let me turn it around. Is there any line this President could cross that would lead you to call for impeachment? Anything at all that would make you pause and say, “This time, he’s gone too far.”
January 1st, 2006 at 7:44 pm
For the record, the NSA does not do wire-tapping. Wire tapping is an oversimplification of what the NSA really does which is large scale monitoring. The Echelon system has been around since the 1980s and is a multi-billion dollar high-tech multi-national intelligence project. Instead of thinking about wire-taps, you should associate the NSA more with a satellite in space, or a bunch of attenas and radomes in the middle of the desert.
Distler brings a good point I think. What would the president be impeached for? The Republican party as a whole seems to be ruled by some iron fist at the top. Time after time over the years they’ve lined up behind the president no matter what he does… and since they control Congress I don’t see how it would be impossible to impeach him.
In addition to that, 11 Sept. has become the universal excuse for the executive branch when it comes to doing whatever it wants to do. Every time something pops up that is negative the administration responds with “oh well this is necessary in the war on terrorism.” Since we’ve already agreed that terrorism is a permanent problem, that essentially gives the executive a blank check to do what it wants to do.
This is why its extremely important that SCOTUS takes the Jose Padilla case (one that I feel is a blatant violation of basic constitutional rights) and hand the government a nice slap in the face.
January 1st, 2006 at 9:47 pm
dmac wrote:
What 72 hour wait are you talking about? FISA allows them to start wiretapping immediately, as long as they file for a warrant within 72 hours.
Did you think they have to wait 72 hours before beginning a wiretap??
And, anyway, whatever weaknesses FISA might have could easily have been rectified. The USA Patriot Act introduced major revisions to FISA, and the Administration has had 4 years to propose further modifications, if that was what it would take.
Instead, they decided to proceed behind the back of both Congress and the Judiciary.
Why do you think that is?
January 1st, 2006 at 10:35 pm
Jacques, I love this President because he is blunt and strong on the defense of this nation, not because he ’shamelessly misrepresents the nature and scope of this program of large-scale illegal wiretapping’. We’ve covered this ground before; my stance is that Bush may well have broken the law. I don’t think he is above it. We know for a fact that Clinton, Reagan, Nixon, LBJ, Kennedy, and indeed almost every modern president has broken the law or lied about matters of national security, as well.
Now that’s a problem, and my point is not to defend Bush by saying the others did it, too. If it can be proven that he did break the law, I won’t hide behind legalisms. I don’t think it has been proven yet.
Here’s why I still defend the President, though; Clinton lied to a grand jury for no other reason than he couldn’t keep his pants zipped up, the sign of a weak man and a moral coward. Nixon lied because he was paranoid and vindictive. Reagan and LBJ arguably had more moral standing, as they did what they did for national security reasons. Kennedy actually did steal the election of 1960, with the help of the very mobsters his brother would soon go after, as opposed to fantasies about Bush stealing his two elections.
My point is that each situation is different. You ask if there is any line Bush could cross that would lead me to call for his impeachment. Indeed there is: the day anyone, anywhere, proves to me that Bush ever did anything to abuse his position as president for his own personal gain, as opposed to doing it for the security of our nation, I’ll be at the head of the line.
As to the situation before us now: if - IF - it is shown that Bush has engaged in illegal activities, and if it is also shown that he did so intentionally, then he will have put himself above the law, and that’s not acceptable, for a president of either party. Impeachment would be one remedy; censure would be another. We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it…but surely, Jacques, you’ll forgive even a Republican like me for not letting a New York Times reporter have the final word on what is or isn’t illegal.
You said in another post hearings should be held; I’ll go along with that. Let’s get to the bottom of it. I reserve the right to wait and see what the evidence may show…
January 1st, 2006 at 10:47 pm
Yes, I’m aware of the lack of restrictions on immediate wiretapping - but the problem lies in deciphering the following vernacular concerning “electronic surveillance,” as it pertains to the FISA section detailed below:
50 U.S.C. Sec. 1801(f):
(f) “Electronic surveillance” means—
(1) the acquisition by an electronic, mechanical, or other surveillance device of the contents of any wire or radio communication sent by or intended to be received by a particular, known United States person who is in the United States, if the contents are acquired by intentionally targeting that United States person, under circumstances in which a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy and a warrant would be required for law enforcement purposes;
(2) the acquisition by an electronic, mechanical, or other surveillance device of the contents of any wire communication to or from a person in the United States, without the consent of any party thereto, if such acquisition occurs in the United States, but does not include the acquisition of those communications of computer trespassers that would be permissible under section 2511 (2)(i) of title 18;
(3) the intentional acquisition by an electronic, mechanical, or other surveillance device of the contents of any radio communication, under circumstances in which a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy and a warrant would be required for law enforcement purposes, and if both the sender and all intended recipients are located within the United States; or
(4) the installation or use of an electronic, mechanical, or other surveillance device in the United States for monitoring to acquire information, other than from a wire or radio communication, under circumstances in which a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy and a warrant would be required for law enforcement purposes.
My apologies for the long post here, but since I’m not of a legal mind, I have no idea how a warrant can be issued in any number of cases, since the law seems to be open to wide interpretation here.
January 1st, 2006 at 11:06 pm
I’d lie about sex.
January 1st, 2006 at 11:31 pm
dmac:
You posted a long legal definition of “electronic surveilance,” the thing which — if directed against a “US Person” inside the US — requires a warrant.
Are you concerned that the definition is too narrow? Too broad? Simply out-of-date?
I’m not a lawyer either, but I trust that, if the above definition was somehow inadequate, the Administration employs lawyers capable of drafting better language to replace it. No such alternate language has been proposed.
Mark:
You’ve said before that you believe that the President acted with the security of this nation in mind.
Fine.
Then let him make the case to the American people that the laws must be changed to accomodate the NSA domestic eavesdropping program he initiated.
What he did, instead, was disingenuously mischaracterize both the nature and the scope of that program. (And the White House, immediately, had to spring into action issuing retractions.)
Yes, it was a feisty performance. But the Americal people deserve more than mere feistiness from their President. And I think you, as a Republican, ought to expect more.
January 2nd, 2006 at 4:13 am
Hello Hokie Explorer: Great comments. I hope that’s “hokie” as in Virginia Tech. B.S. Electrical Engineering, 1990……
Mark: When I first visited here, I thought this was just another right-wing love fest, and said as such. But I read some more posts, and then the comments, and realized I was wrong. It’s clear you also read articles, weblogs, and general comments from people who typically disagree with you. And I respect that.
But I just don’t get it. Why do you “love” this president when he simply lies about the program again, perhaps out of ignorance (”only for incoming calls”), and clearly misrepresents why he needed to break the law. As Jacques pointed out, if the current law is limiting, why not change it? Bush has had 4 years.
It’s practically embarrassing that a sitting president can insult the intelligence of so many Americans so blatantly. He has almost certainly broken the law, has said he will continue to break the law, then cannot give a decent defense as to why he has decided to do this. He has to revert to lies and misrepresentations at his “fiesty” press conference.
Maybe it’s time to put the hero worship aside a bit and take a cold, hard look at what this president is doing.
January 2nd, 2006 at 4:18 am
Mark wrote: My point is that each situation is different. You ask if there is any line Bush could cross that would lead me to call for his impeachment. Indeed there is: the day anyone, anywhere, proves to me that Bush ever did anything to abuse his position as president for his own personal gain, as opposed to doing it for the security of our nation, I’ll be at the head of the line.
This is not about Bush making money. I never bought into the “all about oil” crowd. It’s more serious than that. It is about the abuse of power. It is about restricting the liberties of Americans. It might even be about spying on political opponents. Forget about the money!
How about this: If Bush used this program to spy on Democrats, or anti-war protesters, would you call for impeachment? What if he used it to monitor calls/emails/etc. of all Muslim Americans?
January 2nd, 2006 at 4:32 am
William Safire, from the Nixon years:
I was writing a speech on welfare reform, and the president looks at it and says, “OK, I’ll go with it, but this is not going to get covered. Leak it as far an wide as you can beforehand. Maybe we’ll get something in the paper.” And so I go back to my office and I get a call from a reporter, and he wants to know about foreign affairs or something, and I said, “Hey, you want a leak? I’ll tell you what the president will say tomorrow about welfare reform.” And he took it down and wrote a little story about it. But the FBI was illegally tapping his phone at the time, and so they hear a White House speechwriter say, “Hey, you want a leak?” And so they tapped my phone, and for six months, every home phone call I got was tapped. I didn’t like that. And when it finally broke–it did me a lot of good at the time, frankly, because then I was on the right side–but it told me how easy it was to just take somebody who is not really suspected of anything for any good reason and listen to every conversation in his home–you know, my wife talking to her doctor, my–everything.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-hamsher/russert-watch-the-outto_b_13114.html
January 2nd, 2006 at 8:30 am
“If Bush used this program to spy on Democrats, or anti-war protesters, would you call for impeachment? What if he used it to monitor calls/emails/etc. of all Muslim Americans?”
And, aside from this strawman, who has accused the President of doing this? And the purpose of the Safire/Nixon bit? Did Bush admit to any of this while I was nursing a hangover yesterday? Not that I’ve read.
The thing I admire most about this President is his willingness to do what he believes is right and consistent with his sworn obligation to protect and defend the United States - regardless of the political impact. In political terms, the less risky approach would have been to stick with the UN inspections regime, to mollify the Germans and French, to assume the most strict and conservative reading of FISA. Instead he does what he believes (and is advised to believe) will provide the best and strongest measure of protecting us and the US. My Democrat friends say that is evidence that he is a moron. But, then, they liked the Clinton style of triangulation and political calculation.
January 2nd, 2006 at 9:18 am
Joe, when I say his own personal gain, I mean more than money, too; for example, spying on political opponents, in the mode of Nixon, would be, in my eyes, for his own personal gain…
January 2nd, 2006 at 10:02 am
So, is that the latest winger talking point? That there exists a (”liberal”) reading of FISA that permits the NSA domestic surveilance program?
Not even the Administration claims that.
They claim that the authorization to use force in Iraq trumps FISA. They claim that “in wartime” the President has the authority to wiretap whomever, whereever he wants, no matter what FISA (or the 4th Amendment ) says.
While that’s a legal theory that causes me (and anyone who still believes in the rule of law) to recoil in horror, it is, at least, a theory. The idea that FISA somehow permits what it, in fact, explicitly forbids, is not.
January 2nd, 2006 at 10:18 am
Sorry. Scratch the word “Iraq”. It’s an even vaguer Congressional Resolution, passed on a voice-vote a few days after 9/11, that the Administration claims grants the President unlimited power to circumvent any legal impediments in his pursuit of the War on Terror.
January 2nd, 2006 at 10:29 am
Jacques, yes, that’s the case…from the Newsweek article I cited today:
The legal justification, in addition to the commander in chief’s warmaking power under the Constitution, was a congressional resolution that was shouted through in September 2001, three days after the attacks. Most members of Congress seem to have assumed they were voting to authorize an attack on Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. But a former White House official involved in the drafting, who did not wish to be identified discussing internal matters, said the understanding in the administration was that the president was seeking “an express grant of authority from Congress to maximize the power that could be used”—meaning all kinds of power to seek out, detain and kill terrorists.
You could, could you not, make the case that perhaps Congress should read the legislation they pass a little closer, or spend more time in debate?
January 2nd, 2006 at 11:30 am
See point 11 of the Obey-Frank-Price-Allen Reform Bill.
What do you think is the chance that it’ll get passed?
January 2nd, 2006 at 11:30 am
Mark, legislation such as that is dangerous because its pushed through in times of high emotions. The American public was screaming for blood, there was no way that any Congressman or woman could vote against the act without putting the nail in the coffin on their political future. I’m sure some of them did read it and had serious reservations about it, but between that and re-election which one would you choose as a career politician?
The same thing can be said about the USA Patriot Act. It was pushed through in the immediate days following the attacks without any real thought about what the ramifications of it might be. Even the name of the legislation is politically pointed. “USA Patriot Act” - who could vote against such a noble bill? If someone voted against it the administration would have fired back “Well, this senator voted against the patriot act. They voted against defending America! Do you want someone like that in Congress?! And the president, riding his huge wave of support after the attacks would have destroyed any opposition.
Hokie Hi Joe! I’m a majorless sophomore. LoL
January 2nd, 2006 at 11:35 am
There’s no need for pejoratives (”winger”).
I was attempting to identify that the President has demonstrated, in a number of situations, a willingness to do what he thinks is right rather than what is the easy and safe political move. I was not suggesting a new talking point or line of defense. Sheesh.
January 2nd, 2006 at 11:42 am
too many steves:
I won’t disagree with you that sometimes the President doing what they think is right instead of the best political action is probably a good think.
However, I think we should keep in mind that we are a represenative democracy.
January 2nd, 2006 at 11:55 am
Absolutely. And a nation of laws not men. So, even if he did what he did because he thought it consistent with his obligation to protect the Nation, but which is later found out to be illegal and/or at odds with his Constitutional powers, then we have the right to hold him to account by voting him out (too late) and impeaching him.
And as Mark has said - along the way we have a serious discussion of the trade-offs between liberty and security while arguing the value of a 25 year old law given the realities of the security threats of today.
January 2nd, 2006 at 8:57 pm
Joe-
I realize this wasn’t directed at me, but re: “How about this: If Bush used this program to spy on Democrats, or anti-war protesters, would you call for impeachment? What if he used it to monitor calls/emails/etc. of all Muslim Americans?”
Yes, I would.
And that gets to much of the heart of this. The outrage should appear when a power is abused, not when a power is used that it might be possible for someone else to abuse later.
Show me a President who has his political staff accessing the FBI background checks and unrealeased confidential military files of political candidates from the other party, and using this information in the campaigns… and I’ll happily support impeachment, though conceivably no laws will have been broken.
Show me an administration making use of similar data to see if anyone with a current security clearance has ties to an organization that has just been discovered to be a domestic front for Al Qaida, and I’ll be calling for your head for leaking the previously-unreleased fact that the administration is aware of that organization’s terrorist ties.
It’s entirely about context.
Jaques-
One nice thing about the legal argument that this power extends from the 9/11 resolution is that it is only valid in an anti-terrorism context, with no slippery slope to checking up on one’s enemies.
January 2nd, 2006 at 11:54 pm
Clint: Terrorism is a perspective and does not have a finite defintion, thus making it a slippery slope. People who protest what the government does could easily be labeled terrorists. Look at all the character assassination that has gone in the past few years. Anyone who criticizes the administration has been labeled anti-american, supporting terror, ect.
January 3rd, 2006 at 12:41 am
I have no idea how you claim to know who has been spied upon, and to what purpose. Since there is no Judicial oversight, no one outside of the Administration (and the NSA) knows the answer to that question.
I gather that you trust GWB to only use his superpowers for good, instead of evil. Would feel equally confident if the President’s initials were HRC?
Moreover, since you, apparently, buy into the theory that the President may, in pursuit of the War on Terror, suspend any law he finds inconvenient, let me ask some questions I’ve been dying to ask one the supporters of this theory (popularly known as “the Yoo Doctrine”).
The NSA domestic surveilance program is (we have been told) restricted to communications (phone, internet) where one endpoint is outside the USA. This seems kinda artificial. Don’t al Qaeda operatives inside the US talk to each other? Why not extend the program to cover domestic communications (both endpoints inside the US) as well?
The same theory has been used to justify the use of torture and arbitrary detention without trial (only of terrorists, of course; we’d never do that to anyone who wasn’t a terrorist). Why the squeemishness about doing this outside of US territory (since, under this theory, US Courts have no jurisdiction over those detainees, no matter where they are held). Why bother with Guantanamo and “black sites” in Eastern Europe? Why not do the waterboarding (etc) of the terrorists right here in the good, old US of A? Surely the President would want to be on-hand when some high-ranked al Qaeda leader finally cracks.
January 3rd, 2006 at 1:53 am
Distler:
If you do some more research into the Echelon program you will see that it already does both endpoints.
Echelon intercepts ALL electronic communications in the entire world. That includes, telephone, telegraph, the entire radio spectrum from ULF to UHF (including wireless telephone), all internet traffic including e-mail, chat, instant messages, ect. If it is electronic, it is intercepted. It is then fed through supercomputers that look for strings matching whatever happens to be of interest at the time.
It is a simple matter to get around any domestic spying law: because the program is multinational with partners including the United Kingdom, New Zealand, ect. The United States simply lets the foreign aspects of the system spy in the US and then send the information back. That makes it completely legal.
http://www.fas.org/irp/facility/menwith_13.jpg
That picture represents what the NSA is involved with. It is a global spy network.
January 3rd, 2006 at 2:38 am
Sorta. By Law, they are forbidden from eavesdropping on Domestic communications and, up till 4 years ago, I tend to believe they adhered to that law (Government bureaucrats tend to be sticklers that way).
Let me (for brevity, but also because it’s the technology I understand the best) pick Internet communications to illustrate why your statement isn’t quite right.
Nobody knows for sure, but it is widely believed that the NSA has sniffers installed at major internet hubs, like MAE East. So every IP packet passing through MAE East is potentially recordable. Whether it is recorded, depends on software: every IP packet has both a source address and a destination address, and they can say to their sniffer, “record this IP packet if both the source and destination address are outside the US; otherwise, ignore it.”
From a technical standpoint, it would be quite trivial to change that instruction to “record all IP packets, regardless of source or destination.” (Well, OK, in the case of MAE East, that’s a hugely greater volume of data, but they can filter it in other ways, say by restricting only to packets destined for Port 25 (email) or Port 80 (web). And anyway, they’ve got the budget.)
But, legally, that would be a very dramatic change.
What’s technically possible, what’s legally-allowed, and what’s actually happening are three different things. It’s important to distinguish them when you say, “The NSA (or Echelon) does X.”
January 3rd, 2006 at 9:22 am
Jaques-
“I have no idea how you claim to know who has been spied upon, and to what purpose. Since there is no Judicial oversight, no one outside of the Administration (and the NSA) knows the answer to that question.”
I don’t claim any such knowledge. But in the absence of even a credible accusation of wrongdoing (the original leakers have said no such thing), why would we assume this program is being abused? (Consider the power to arrest people: if we were only just learning that the FBI can arrest people, would we immediately assume that the President’s political enemies were being rounded up by the FBI in a blatant abuse of this power? Why not?) (Also note that the relevant Congressional leadership was informed every 45 days, certainly providing some oversight — these are precisely the people who would hold non-public committee meetings to look into who was spied on — and certainly these are people outside the administration with at least the authority to ask who was being spied on, and some of them are Democrats.)
I feel comfortable that we’re not listening in on Harry Reid’s calls to Howard Dean because I am certain that most NSA employees would immediately report such blatant abuse to the relevant Congressional officials (heads of the intelligence oversight committee) — as the law in fact requires — or to the New York Times.
January 3rd, 2006 at 9:44 am
Jaques-
“the theory that the President may, in pursuit of the War on Terror, suspend any law he finds inconvenient… Yoo Doctrine…”
The very definition of a Strawman.
Not even John Yoo would come close to agreeing with such a ridiculous statement.
The assertion here is that listening in on the enemy’s communication is a fundamental part of the power to wage war. When Congress authorized the President to wage war against Al Qaida, it also implicitly authorized him to listen in on their phone calls — even the ones they place to perfectly innocent people in the U.S. (The data mining is justified slightly differently.)
Consider the following hypothetical: Canada invades the U.S. and is beseiging Detroit. Would you expect the 1st Infantry Division to go to a judge for a warrant before trying to listen in on their communications (even those placed as domestic phone calls to other people in the U.S.), simply because they are inside U.S. territory? Or would you assume that the President’s authority to wage war against an invading army extended to authorizing such signal intelligence?
Finally, would you consider this argument to mean that the President could authorize our troops to violate “any law he finds inconvenient” during such an invasion by Canada?
January 3rd, 2006 at 10:09 am
It is no more, nor less illegal for the NSA to be eavesdropping on the conversations of Ahmed from Detroit than on those of Harry Reid. The Law makes no such distinction.
You may be right that eavesdropping on the latter may be more likely to outrage some NSA staffer (but not a lot more likely; most people take umbrage at being asked to systematically violate the Law, in the course of their job, though they may be reluctant to become whistle blowers, for fear of the consequences), and hence carries a greater risk of discovery.
But the Law makes no distinction between them, nor does it “in fact require” such employees to report the latter to the “heads of the intelligence oversight committee”.
Jay Rockefeller would disagree with you. And he, unlike you, was one of the “lucky” few to be briefed on the program.
But you didn’t respond to the second half of my comment. I’m really interested in your belief that, in the pursuit of the War on Terror, the President has the right to simply set aside existing Laws and act in what he believes is the national interest.
I’m really interested in understanding the thought process behind that.
January 3rd, 2006 at 10:16 am
How do you determine which Laws can be overridden by the President and which cannot?
Obviously, some Laws (say, those concerning highway safety) are irrelevant to war-fighting. But, of the Laws which are relevant, how do you determine which can be overridden by the President and which cannot?
January 3rd, 2006 at 10:25 am
A Declaration of Martial Law covers the eventualities of that hypothetical. Did I miss a Declaration of Martial Law in the GWOT?