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Or the changing of the "estate tax" to the "death tax" as Bill Maher says. The Republicans are so much better at the word game.
As per Fox News and the White House, the NSA program that has come under scrutiny will now be known as the "terrorist surveillance program."
From here forward, anyone making arguments against the NSA program will also be making arguments against "terrorist surveillance."
This is the same administration that gave us the "Patriot" Act.
I am waiting for the "Taking Care of Your Grandparents" Social Security Reform Act and the "Helping Cute Kids" School Voucher Program.
Or the changing of the "estate tax" to the "death tax" as Bill Maher says. The Republicans are so much better at the word game.
Right, the "death" tax and " cide" bombers.
Whatever works.
So, what about those Prestigious Lawyers and Law Professors?
Several former Clinton administration officials are among the group of “scholars of cons utional law and former government officials” (a.k.a. "prestigious lawyers and law professors") who submitted that letter to Congress asserting that the Bush administration had “fail[ed] to identify any plausible legal authority” for the NSA program that does not comply with the warrant procedure mandated by Congress in FISA (the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978).
One of those former Clinton administration officials is Walter Dellinger.
But in 1994, Dellinger was singing a different tune. As the Assistant Attorney General in the Clinton Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, Dellinger explained in a written opinion to the White House, that: “The President has enhanced responsibility to resist uncons utional provisions that encroach upon the cons utional powers of the Presidency.”
The opinion is excerpted at some length in a letter being submitted to the Judiciary Committee by Bryan Cunningham. Maybe not a "prestigious lawyer or law professor, but a terrific lawyer, nonetheless, who worked in both the Clinton and Bush administrations (in the NSA, CIA and DOJ). That letter is now available at the website of Bryan’s lawfirm, www.morgancunningham.net.
The letter demonstrates that settled legal principles, developed by the federal courts since the Nation’s founding and cited by administrations of both political parties, most assuredly including the Clinton administration, emphasize that the President of the United States has plenary authority in the matter of foreign intelligence collection (and foreign affairs generally). Bryan also illustrates that separation-of-powers principles obligate the President to decline to enforce (i.e., to ignore) congressional statutes that encroach on or purport to limit the executive’s cons utional powers – just as FISA does. This, too, is a position the Justice Department has aggressively defended under both Republican and Democrat administrations.
The entire Cunningham letter is well worth reading. Especially noteworthy is Dellinger’s 1994 OLC opinion, which states, for example:
Also particularly interesting given the number of Clinton officials who signed the afore-described letter condemning President Bush’s alleged flouting of the FISA wiretap statute, is another opinion issued by the Clinton administration’s OLC – this one in 2000. It’s discussed at length in the Cunningham letter. The Clinton OLC asserted, among other things, that even though the criminal wiretap statute (18 USC Sec 2510 et seq.) purports to limit the executive branch’s ability to disclose wiretap information, the President was free to ignore those statutory provisions where limiting “the access of the President and his aides to information critical to national security or foreign relations ... would be uncons utional as applied in those cir stances.”
Well no Presidents want more power. They've been trying to get more ever since it was curtailed after Nixon. The question is whether it's a good idea to go back to Nixon's imperial presidency. You obviously think it's the greatest idea ever, but wold you be plagiarizing blogs so strenuously for President Hilary?
I don't see how you can equate the NSA Program in question to the political spying done by Nixon or Clinton.
And, no, I wouldn't be so vigorously defending Hillary Clinton. She hired Craig Livingstone and was responsible for ruining the careers of those fired from the White House Travel Office...all for political reasons. I don't trust her.
Even so, how 'bout arguing against the points made instead of bloviating over things that aren't relevant?
Power - oversight = abuse. Without exception.I don't see how you can equate the NSA Program in question to the political spying done by Nixon or Clinton.But you would accept her having all kinds of unchecked power as President because that's what you believe they should have. As long as we say we're at war -- when could we declare we aren't anymore?And, no, I wouldn't be so vigorously defending Hillary Clinton.
Your failure to see the relevance continues to amaze.
Except it isn't without exception. This administration uses the NSA Program for limited cases and continues to rely on FISA for those that are relevant.
un huh.
Says who?This administration uses the NSA Program for limited cases
Them?
^^I do. Keep talking and we will keep listening. You really do have a good
forum name: CHUMPDUMPer. Fits you to a "T". You really think someone would
be interested in what you have to say on a phone. I don't think so.
Do you know of someone that disputes this?
I believe the law says we need a court order to wiretap even when chasing down terrorists, and in saying that, I believe when we are doing warrantless wiretaps we have violated no laws.
Do you know of someone who could possibly prove them stop them if they chose to spy on someone else?Do you know of someone that disputes this?
Huh? Want to try that in English?
I don't know enlglish.
Perhaps you would have trusted Nixon to do the right thing too...
I find it astounding at the number of rights that so-called conservatives are willing to give up, just because GW asked them to. Well maybe not asked, just took.
The same people who and moan about the gov'mint they don't trust to act responsibly takin' their paychecks suddenly think that same government will suddenly act responsibly if you give it all sorts of power to bypass the protections for rights that have been the cornerstone of our society for centuries.
Put in an "or" jackass. I'll let you figure out where.Huh? Want to try that in English?
Should take about a week.
I could care less if other Administrations did precisely the same thing. If the arguments espoused by certain advocates could be characterized as contradictory (I prefer to see them as nuanced), that doesn't settle the Cons utional and public policy issues implicated in this situation. If it's uncons utional, it was uncons utional for the Clinton Administration, just as it is for the Bush Administration.
What continues to amuse me is the suggestion that this isn't even a close question. Even lawyers in the Justice Department aren't unanimously sold on the cons utionality of the program; if Bush's lawyers can't agree about this, how can it be a simple question? I've admitted before (and will admit again now) that the program may ultimately be found to be cons utional -- but I think it will take a a close decision by a divided Supreme Court that will find the issue to be anything but a simple question.
I'm fairly politically apathetic, but the feds were up our ass well before Bush came on the scene. It's the same old cycle, the drones for the party in power defend everything and the drones for the party out of power make every move out to be the end of the nation as we know it. Here's an idea, stop droning on and go yourselves. What passes for political discourse in this country is either a proposition that Bush is the greatest president of all time or that he's the second coming of Hitler. This is why such a substantial number of Americans don't bother to vote in any election.
I agree. But the real problem is that your apathy leads to the drones staying in power.
Stop checking out of the political process, get off your lazy ass and do something. Whiners and conspiracy nuts who complain about what "they" are doing piss me off to no end. You want change, do SOMETHING.
Don't speak for me Yoni boy, I was for a court order before I was agianst it.
I'm George W Bush and I approve this message.
That's not the point. The administration shouldn't have to reveal a top secret national security program simply to disabuse you of the notion they may be using it improperly.
Why didn't the traitorous NSA leakers provide a specific example of uncons utional or illegal eavesdropping when they committed their treason? Because none exists. Because the administration is using the program exactly as they claim they are -- to eavesdrop on international communications between known terrorists and people inside the U.S.
If this weren't true, the people who leaked the program should have provided evidence of wrongdoing or kept their traitorous mouths shut. As it is, they knew people like you and the liberal media would speculate and make all sorts of far-fetched accusations without a shred of proof.
In the process, you and they are running a fairly high risk of compromising our ability to detect and stop terrorist attacks. Thank you very much.
Oh, if you're going to up a post -- you shouldn't try to cover your illiteracy by forcing other people to tell you what you said.
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