Saturday, December 17, 2005
All the laws President Bush broke by approving the spying on civillians without warrants.The Washington Monthly As the Washington Monthly points out,
"This is against the law. I have put references to the relevant statute below the fold; the brief version is: the law forbids warrantless surveillance of US citizens, and it provides procedures to be followed in emergencies that do not leave enough time for federal agents to get a warrant. If the NY Times report is correct, the government did not follow these procedures. It therefore acted illegally.
"Bush's order is arguably unconstitutional as well: it seems to violate the fourth amendment, and it certainly violates the requirement (Article II, sec. 3) that the President "shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed."
But the right-wing spin machine has an answer for it in Michelle Malkin's popular blog:
"The real headline news is not that President Bush took extraordinary measures to protect Americans in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, but that the blabbermouths at the Times chose to disclose classified information in a pathetically obvious bid to move the Iraqi elections off the front pages. And to help sabotage the Patriot Act reauthorization, which went down in the Senate this afternoon.
[Update: And to grease the wheels for Times reporter James Risen's new book.]"
Earth to Malkin: By similar reasoning, the Washington Post threatened national security when they revealed President Nixon's Watergate and anti-bugging operations. And since Woodward and Bernstein planned to write a book, all their reporting on Watergate should be considered compromised.
"This is against the law. I have put references to the relevant statute below the fold; the brief version is: the law forbids warrantless surveillance of US citizens, and it provides procedures to be followed in emergencies that do not leave enough time for federal agents to get a warrant. If the NY Times report is correct, the government did not follow these procedures. It therefore acted illegally.
"Bush's order is arguably unconstitutional as well: it seems to violate the fourth amendment, and it certainly violates the requirement (Article II, sec. 3) that the President "shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed."
But the right-wing spin machine has an answer for it in Michelle Malkin's popular blog:
"The real headline news is not that President Bush took extraordinary measures to protect Americans in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, but that the blabbermouths at the Times chose to disclose classified information in a pathetically obvious bid to move the Iraqi elections off the front pages. And to help sabotage the Patriot Act reauthorization, which went down in the Senate this afternoon.
[Update: And to grease the wheels for Times reporter James Risen's new book.]"
Earth to Malkin: By similar reasoning, the Washington Post threatened national security when they revealed President Nixon's Watergate and anti-bugging operations. And since Woodward and Bernstein planned to write a book, all their reporting on Watergate should be considered compromised.
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