Sunday, December 18, 2005
"The President has authorities under FISA which we are using and using actively...."
From the New York Times editorial "This Call May Be Monitored ...":
"Let's be clear about this: illegal government spying on Americans is a violation of individual liberties, whether conditions are troubled or not. Nobody with a real regard for the rule of law and the Constitution would have difficulty seeing that.
This particular end run around civil liberties is unnecessary. The intelligence agency already had the capacity to read your mail and your e-mail and listen to your telephone conversations. All it had to do was obtain a warrant from a special court created for this purpose. The burden of proof for obtaining a warrant was relaxed a bit after 9/11, but even before the attacks the court hardly ever rejected requests." (click here for more)
Ole' girl Condoleezza Lies was tap dancing like crazy this morning on Meet The Press but she still came off real weak.
I think Bush is in real trouble this time around. Both Republican Senator and noted Iraq war hawk Lindsay Graham and Senator Bob Graham are debunking the White House talking points that the sceret domestic spying without court approvals was run by Congressional oversight committees first and conducted with legal authority.
You know the Right must be desperate when they go for their standard spin angle of last resort that the Domestic Spy Scanadal is actually Clinton's fault.
More:
- David Sirota on the Most Important Question of All in the Bush Domestic Spying Scandal.
- From the Unclaimed Territory blog: "Defenders of the Bush Administration are resorting to outright distortions and deliberate falsehoods about the Foreign Intelligence Security Act (FISA) in order to argue that the Administration's warrantless eavesdropping on U.S. citizens complies with the mandates of that statute." (read more here)
- From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: "The Bush administration is continuing its assault on Americans' privacy and freedom in the name of the war on terrorism.... The idea that all of this is being done to us in the name of national security doesn't wash; that is the language of a police state." (read more here)
- And like I said before this scandal ain't nothin' new or unique.
Next stop: Impeachment Hearings?
