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Bush is Defenseless

The Bush Administration is without a defense on the NSA spying program. As pointed out here, their current stated defense is factually false. The Senate hearings on this (which will be rigidly controlled and steered by Arlen Specter to minimize damage to the program) are coming up. However it’s important to keep these two things in mind:

1) As pointed out at the above link, Senator DeWine tried to change the FISA law and was told this was not necessary. This means that either the current spying program goes beyond even DeWine’s expanded law, or that they wanted to keep it a secret (and illegal) program, or both.

2) Just as importantly, the Justice Department itself drafted legislation to change the FISA law to give NSA more latitude. This was killed from inside the Justice Dept. and there never has been a public explanation as to why. Gonzales knows why and should be made to answer.

3) As noted below, Gonzales lied under oath to Senator Feingold in order to protect the ongoing existence of the program during his confirmation hearing in 2005. Gonzales told his confirmation hearing that the President was not above the law, that there was no policy or agenda of contravening existing statutes in regards to wiretapping or torture, and that he would inform the Senate (not one or two Senators, but the whole Senate) promptly if Bush ever decided to do something that appeared to contradict existing law.

4) Bush repeatedly in both 2004 and 2005 told the American public very specifically that he could not “go chasing down terrorists without a warrant.” He went out of his way to stress this idea. He knew it wasn’t true, because he was going after both “terror suspects” and non-suspects who were Americans, without warrants. Why did he go out of his way to say the opposite of the truth, bringing up a sensitive subject then lying about it?

Questions based on these 4 facts have to be asked and answered, or the hearings are a joke. I think that people should concentrate their grassroots lobbying on forcing these questions to be answered, with the same energy that they just used to try and stop the Supreme Court nominee, and then more. I fully expect Bush to refuse to answer these questions sufficiently; because I don’t think he can give a truthful answer without it leading to his impeachment. That’s precisely why these issues have to be the focus of the hearings.

President Bush — April 19, 2004:

For years,
law enforcement used so-called roving wire taps to investigate
organized crime. You see, what that meant is if you got a wire tap by
court order — and, by the way, everything you hear about requires
court order, requires there to be permission from a FISA court, for
example.

President Bush — April 20, 2004:

Secondly, there are such things as roving wiretaps. Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires — a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we’re talking about chasing down terrorists, we’re talking about getting a court order before we do so. It’s important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution.

President Bush — June 9, 2005:

One tool that has been
especially important to law enforcement is called a roving wiretap.
Roving wiretaps allow investigators to follow suspects who frequently
change their means of communications. These wiretaps must be approved
by a judge, and they have been used for years to catch drug dealers and
other criminals. Yet, before the Patriot Act, agents investigating
terrorists had to get a separate authorization for each phone they
wanted to tap.
That means terrorists could elude law enforcement by
simply purchasing a new cell phone. The Patriot Act fixed the problem
by allowing terrorism investigators to use the same wiretaps that were
already being using against drug kingpins and mob bosses.

White House fact sheet – June 9, 2005:

The Patriot Act extended the use of roving wiretaps, which were already permitted against drug kingpins and mob bosses, to
international terrorism investigations. They must be approved by a
judge
. Without roving wiretaps, terrorists could elude law enforcement
by simply purchasing a new cell phone.

President Bush — July 20, 2005:

The Patriot Act helps us defeat our enemies while
safeguarding civil liberties for all Americans. The judicial branch has a
strong oversight role in the application of the Patriot Act. Law
enforcement officers need a federal judge’s permission to wiretap a foreign
terrorist’s phone, or to track his calls, or to search his property
.
Officers must meet strict standards to use any of the tools we’re talking
about. And they are fully consistent with the Constitution of the United
States.

White House fact sheet — July 20, 2005:

The judicial branch has a strong oversight role in the application of the
Patriot Act. Law enforcement officers must seek a federal judge’s
permission to wiretap a foreign terrorist’s phone, track his calls, or
search his property. These strict standards are fully consistent with the
Constitution.
Congress also oversees the application of the Patriot Act,
and in more than three years there has not been a single verified abuse.

President Bush — December 10, 2005:

The Patriot Act is helping America defeat our enemies while safeguarding
civil liberties for all our people. The judicial branch has a strong
oversight role in the application of the Patriot Act. Under the act,
law enforcement officers need a federal judge’s permission to wiretap a
foreign terrorist’s phone or search his property
. Congress also
oversees our use of the Patriot Act. Attorney General Gonzales delivers
regular reports on the Patriot Act to the House and the Senate.

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