Pete The Elder

Don't you think a little accountability would be wise? I support covert intelligence gathering, but not to the extreme that this goes. Somebody besides the White House needs to know and approve.

As far as legal precedence, see this report by the Congressional Research Service that would disagree with your argument: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/intel/m010506.pdf

Also, I'm not buying the "other Presidents did it too" argument. That is certainly the case, but it seems to me that this argument is simply using other people's wrong actions to justify this administration's wrong actions OR that the previous use of wiretapping was in an entirely different scenario.

There is some oversight in the form of congression review of the program. Many of the congressmen who are complaining now knew before what was going on and did not complain when their complaints would not be known to the public and thus be free of any partisan advantage. In fact, before this program had started (and while these actions were still hidden from the public), some of Bush's current critics like Nacy Pelosi worried that Bush was not using wiretaps enough.

The point of other presidents doing the same thing matters for two main reasons. The legality of actions in this country are based on legal precedent and if something was legal for previous presidents to do and if, as Gorelick argued, it is in the president's inherent authority under the consitution to do warrentless searches in cases of national secruity, then that would imply Bush's actions were legal.

The second reason applies more to the president's critics. If they had no problem with Clinton's or Carter's warrentless searches in related circumstaces, it is reasonable to assume they would have no problem with Bush's searches if a Democrat like Gore had done them. That means that their motivation for criticizing Bush is purely partisan and not motivated by respect for the law. If someone who criticized Clinton for his warrentless searches (like the Cato institute) criticizes Bush for the same thing, then I can respect that. But if you were fine when Clinton was doing this, but horrified by Bush who also had to worry about preventing future 9/11s from happening, it is hard for me to take your claims about Bush breaking the law seriously.

Also I do not think that this is "two wrongs make a right" because I think Clinton and Carter were right when they did their warrentless searches for national security purposes.

Other Presidents have surely stretched their authority in times of crisis. Some like Lincoln, Wilson, FDR, and Nixon have outright abused that power. But precedent for abuse hardly constitutes justification.

Unlike Clinton, Carter and Kennedy, the current President is demanding the widespread exercise of his right to declare an American citizen an unlawful enemy combatant. Unlike these former Presidents, the current administration is making wide use of "rendering" and establishing an international gulag network. Unlike other administrations this President seems to parse the definition of "torture" with as much difficulty as Bill Clinton defining the word "is." Surely these three factors place the current President�s application of warrantless searches in a more pernicious light. This is no longer some academic technicality when the prevalence of the combination of these factors starts occurring at an industrial scale.

It also seems odd to me that Conservatives would make a Constitutional case from outcomes rather than Constitutional principles. Supposedly, according to Judge Alito, the Constitutionality of a question is not to be measured by the likelihood of an undesirable outcome if a decision falls left or right. According to strict constructionist theory, it would not matter if Washington DC were in imminent danger of being blown off the map, the President does not have the authority to violate the Constitution. He must uphold his oath of office consequences be damned.

For those who say the Constitution is not a suicide pact, I say that is exactly what it is. Hence its authors pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honors to defend it.

Constitutional representative government in the United States will survive all the threats Jihadist terrorists can throw at it. We may take casualties but we will survive. What Constitutional government cannot withstand is fear mongering situational ethicists who are strict constructionists of convenience. A government that promises security at the cost of Liberty will ultimately deliver neither.

"But precedent for abuse hardly constitutes justification"

That is why I used Clinton and Carter as my examples, neither of whom abused their power to conduct warrentless searches for national security purposes.

"President is demanding the widespread exercise of his right to declare an American citizen an unlawful enemy combatant."

He is doing that with what one or two people, right? That is widespread? How few does it have to be to be smallspread? And Jose Padilla is an unlawful combatant. He was fighting for a foreign power while not wearing a uniform, which under the Geneva Convention makes him an unlawful combatant.

"establishing an international gulag network"

How many people has Bush sent to the prison for their political beliefs? Zero. You insult the memories of the millions who died in real gulags with this disgusting statement.

"A government that promises security at the cost of Liberty will ultimately deliver neither."

It is these sorts of statement that make me no longer take libertarians seriously. There are always tradeoffs between liberty and security and neither can be treated as an absolute. Governments exist to protect our rights and liberties, but they can only do this by occasionally depriving us of some other rights and liberties. For instance, the only way the government can protect us from murderers who take away other peoples right to life is by putting the murderers in prison, which deprives the murderers of their right to liberty. Having a government capable of taking away some liberties to give us security in some circumstances is a necessary consequence of not descending into anarchy. Serious and mature people understand this.

"It also seems odd to me that Conservatives would make a Constitutional case from outcomes rather than Constitutional principles."

I think the constitutional case should be drawn from the law which is why I quoted Gorelick and Carter among others to defend its constitutionality. All of the sources I quoted seemed to think that the president has not violated the constitution because the constitution allows him to do what he did, not because they liked the outcome. Again that is why I used Clinton and Carter as examples because I do not like either of them, yet they still acted appropriately. The president (no matter who it is at the time) has an inherent authority under article II of the constitution to conduct warrentless searches for national security purposes. All of the relevant case law points to this conclusion. If you know of any appellate cases or Supreme Court cases which disagree with this I would love to hear of them because so far I have not been able to find any. If he starts doing similar warrentless searches for law enforcement cases rather than for national security purposes then you would have a good argument.

I made a pragmatic case based on outcomes because I think it is a good thing that the Brooklyn Bridge is not a smoking pile of rubble burying thousands of my fellow citizens and that preventing this outcome (along with others attacks according to some members of congress) was worth a tiny decrease in liberty that was already allowed by the constitution. Those who are criticizing the president on this have yet to come up with another strategy where this outcome could have been prevented and until they do I, again, have a hard time taking them seriously.

"Constitutional representative government in the United States will survive all the threats Jihadist terrorists can throw at it."

I am not sure it could survive multiple nuclear strikes, which is a possibility if Iran gets nukes or some other state like North Korea starts to sell theirs.

Oh, those crazy liberals with all their civil liberties and such.

Why did Republican Arlen Spector say, "there is no doubt this is inappropriate?" What about all the other Republicans that have spoken out against this? All true conservatives should be disturbed by this since it expands executive power with no checks or balances.

What does Clinton have to do with this? Everytime Bush steps in it, conservatives justify Bush's actions through Clinton whom they hated. Clinton's actions are not the issue here and now. Bush's are.

No matter what Bush does, suspend habeus corpus, hold prisoners without charges, lie about WMD, send prisoners to foreign countries to be torutured, some of you will just never, ever, admit he is wrong.

"All true conservatives should be disturbed by this since it expands executive power with no checks or balances. What does Clinton have to do with this?"

Bush did not expand executive power if he was doing something that presidents have done for decades. That is what Clinton (and Carter and any other president who did this) has to do with it. And just because Clinton was wrong about some things does not mean that he acted illegally in this case. Why is this so hard for the people who are reading this post to understand? Tex, I would like you to explain to me how this is an expansion of power if at least the previous four presidents were also doing it. That would seem to be more maintaining the status quo to me. You could actually make the case that Bush has overall limited the power of the chief executive by not using his powers like the veto and pardon.

I will explain this again for commentators because they do not seem to understand how American law works. American law is based on legal precedent. And all the precedent law relative to this issue says that Bush has done nothing illegal or unconstitutional. If you know of a court case that says otherwise, please let me know about it. Note: a politician or commentator saying Bush did something illegal is not a court case. Also, you saying that Bush did something illegal does not make it so no matter how hard you believe it.

"some of you will just never, ever, admit he is wrong."

Anyone who has read this site for a while knows that is not true of me. I can list tons of things I think Bush is wrong about from his immigration policy to steel tariffs to campaign finance reform.

"suspend habeus corpus, hold prisoners without charges, lie about WMD, send prisoners to foreign countries to be torutured,"

In the case of enemy combatants who fall outside of the protection of the Geneva Convention I have no problem with what Bush has done. If you want those protections join an army, wear a uniform, and don't target civilians. As soon as Bush starts treating regular suspected criminals or true POW's that way then I have a problem with it. However, for any enemy combatants who do not follow the rules set forth in the Geneva Convention I am fine with them being executed if a military hearing determines that they were acting outside the Geneva Convention.

In fact here is something Bush has done wrong: he has not executed enough illegal enemy combatants. I am pretty sure he has not executed any captured terrorists.

Tex, what did Bush lie about? Did Bush know that there were no WMD and then say there are? How exactly would Bush know this since Saddam had kicked out all the inspectors, had not accounted for the WMD he had before the Gulf War, and all the intelligence reports Bush got said Iraq still probably had them? Or are you lying about Bush?