More on Wiretapping
Two stories relevant to this post: Debate Rages Over Legality of NSA Wiretap Program and Surveillance Court Judge Resigns.
I usually nominally agree with Rush on most things, but this one I have to say he's wrong. Rush's contention is that we must give up these rights to be safe, as we won't have them if we are dead. He also contends that this is a legal thing to do.
I can understand that we need to monitor Al Qaeda here in the US, but we can do that within the scope of the law. I do not want to suspend this monitoring by the NSA, I just want judicial oversight. That isn't much to ask, is it?
Granted, Jimmy Carter signed an executive order back when he was President declaring that this kind of stuff was legal, but an executive order does not supersede the Constitution. Reagan, Bush 41 and Clinton all used this EO and nobody questioned it. Why Clinton actually expanded it to include warrantless searches of your property and infrared surveillance of you. Now isn't that comforting?
Rights given up are never given back. Once the government has the power to do something, they keep it, unless the people wrest it back from them. And this is something we need to do. Like I said, I'm not against this, I just want judicial oversight. If you need to monitor someone right now, and can't get a warrant fast enough, then start the monitoring and work on the warrant at the same time.
I am not calling for impeachment, as under the twisted confines of the law, President Bush does have the authority, kind of. It's like pulling yourself up by the bootstraps. He does not, according to the Constitution, have the authority to do what he is doing, and should revert to the Constitution.
Comments
Good thinking.
Lucky for Rush they haven't Echeloned his doctors' records in the prescription painkliller investigation.
Posted by: Wintermute | December 22, 2005 2:23 AM
Actually, the President does have the Constitutional right to authorize wire-taps and physical searches.
The most recently acknowledged public challenge of the right was on November 18th, 2002 in Sealed Case 02-001 which was heard by the FISA courts where they ruled:
"The Truong court, as did all the other courts to have decided the issue, held that the President did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information. It was incumbent upon the court, therefore, to determine the boundaries of that constitutional authority in the case before it. We take for granted that the President does have that authority and, assuming that is so, FISA could not encroach on the President's constitutional power."
The full ruling is here.
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/terrorism/fisa111802opn.pdf
It should also be noted that the Truong reference is for a court case dating back to 1980 so there is an established body of precedent for the President to exercise such powers.
Posted by: Heresiarch | December 24, 2005 5:09 PM