Senator Diane Feinstien made a similar point on the Senate floor, ponting out that this is a violtion of federal law and the Us Constitution. The Constitutional clause she had i mind was against unreasonable search and seizure.

Seems to me Bush has violated his oath of office here.

So Bush broke the law. He can break all the laws he wants as long as the House of Representatives is in Republican hands. We  know they have no regard for our Constitution, our laws or the citizens of this country. SOP for this WH.

thepeoplechoose

It's sort of an interesting legal question, since it's the Administration's position that they have not broken the law.  They're simply following the Yoo Doctrine, under which the President has unlimited powers during wartime.

Let's all hope the Supreme Court picks up the Padilla case again.  What makes Padilla so interesting is that until Padilla's recent indictment, the Administration justified his detention the same way it justified torture and now NSA surveillance: the Yoo Doctrine.

If the Supreme Court roundly rejects the Yoo Doctrine in Padilla, one could argue that activities like torture and domestic snooping should be moved from the "legally murky" column into the "patently illegal" column.  And then you'd only be a Congressional re-alignment away from impeachment.

Not to defend President Bush in any way, but how does Executive Order play into this? Does it at all? Is there such a thing, or is it myth? I thought as long as he wrote the memo "The xyz statute is the law, except in this case - by executive order" he was golden, as long as congress doesn't find fault, and then re-debate and re-vote the particular statute, or impeach.

Am I just cobbling together a long ago forgotten civics lesson with too much Tom Clancy here?

Is this really more serious than lying about cheating on your wife?

You must be joking.  It's vastly more serious to break the laws of our country, and violate the Constitution than it is to lie bout cheating on your wife.  The only person who really cared about Bill Clinton cheating on his wife was his wife.  It did not affect our nation in any significant way - or at least it wouldn't have, if Republicans hadn't been so obsessed with dragging it out for as long as possible.

It's worth noting that Clinton's approval ratings were in the 60s and 70s throughout the impeachment hearings over his affair. The American public clearly didn't see it as reflective of his ability to govern.

George Bush, on the other hand, has shown time and time again that he has no regard for the law, and considers his administration to be completely unaccountable to the public for their policies.

I think that gig is pretty much over for these scumballs. No matter how many go down in the current round of investigations, a lot more will go down in '06.

They're simply following the Yoo Doctrine, under which the President has unlimited powers during wartime.

And the "war on terror" goes on for ever, so the President has unlimited powers for ever. I'm sure that's what our founders intended.

Yoo is behind a lot of this nonsense. He was born in South Korea, but he seems to have gotten his impressions about Presidential power from the North.

From cocaine to the constitution (with a little drunk driving and AWOL from the national guard thrown in), Bush never saw a law he didn't want to break.  It fits a pattern.  So what if you want to abuse civil liberties, steal elections, torture prisoners, start wars, spy on U.S. citizens, etc., etc.(ad nauseum).  It's all A-Okay; if you don't know it, it can't hurt you. 

The preamble of the Constitution states that "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." Bush and Yoo forget among other things that the darn thing is written in the plural.  It doesn't say "I" or "me"; it says "We".  Bush and Yoo will claim that since the Constitution expressly provides that Congress has the power not to make war, but only to declare war, Bush can do any damn thing he pleases.  (See, Art. III, Sec. 8(11)  But doesn't war have to be declared before it can be made?  And when did anyone specifically declare war?  And against who, Yoo?

Poor Bush.  His oath is contained in the Constitution itself.  Article II, Sec. 1(8) provides that "before he enter into the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation: 'I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.' " So lets do what he and his ilk want us to do -- lets be originalists and strictly construe his promise to at least preserve the Constitution.  Forget about protecting or defending it, just preserve it.   Maybe the defense will be that he did so to "best of [his] ability" especially when it comes to the 4th Amendment, but his best just isn't good enough. 

The 4th Amendment provides that "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Why doesn't Bush want to protect, defend, or preserve any of that?  Is the work too hard? 

And another query for Mr. Yoo: why there is no equivalent constitutonal language setting forth the oath that members of Congress must take? 

Of course this is just the tip of the iceberg,the same way dope seizures at the border are like, 5% of what is in the pipeline.

Can there be any doubt that the data mining middleman has long since been eliminated? Certainly the National Security Letters will make the extra special super duper secret primo database a reality within one month of their authorization.

The truely chilling aspect is how they push the envelope just to show that they can. It's like they are training us to swallow ever larger doses of lotus ? ..(what was aldous huxley's narcotic?? Soma.

Every time they are caught raping the constitution they look up with a smile and say "hey, she's loving it"....

Why do we believe them? Are we too embarassed to let on that we notice the rape?

No, a thousand times NO!   The president absolutely is without any power to issue executive orders that violate the law!

How tragic that the meme is out there infecting our citizenry.
 
See above--not only the president who gave, but the staff who carried out, this order must be prosecuted. 

What provisions for immunity are there?  It wouldn't be a true Catch-22 if they didn't say "and if we break the law, you can't sue us."  I can't believe they'd overlook that one.

Are we absolutely certain that there were NO intercepts Bolton requested that targeted US citizens alone?  is there a chance that foreign nationals were incidental to Bolton's requested intercepts?

What's the chance that Bolton requested intercepts of communications on the flight where the INR memo was on board with Powell and Card and whomever else?

Does the firestorm over this secret presidential order explain why the White House wouldn't release the NSA intercepts that Bolton requested?  or was it the specific content of the intercepts that made the White House fight tooth and nail? 

Larry, I'm wondering if there's something more here...

http://fusioner.proboards60.com/index.cgi?board=general&actio
n=display&thread=1131129004

I am going to ask that people take time and express these sentiments to the MSM in a letter campaign.  It's grassroots, simply a list of petitions, and MSM contact info... Using this list you can get a letter out to over 50 MSM outlets, coast to coast, in about 45 minutes.  Over 7500 people have participated.

If you have any questions just drop me a note on the thread linked above.  Thanks all.

Our play here is clear:

"Something to Hide" - all the time, at the top of our lungs

"Don't trust your fellow Americans?" - again, relentlessly.   

Back them into a corner.  And always remember that W is exactly like Marty McFly:  Call him "yellow" and watch him overreact, show his whole hand, and do something unambiguously impeachable.   

Our play here is clear:

"Something to Hide" - all the time, at the top of our lungs

"Don't trust your fellow Americans?" - again, relentlessly.   

Back them into a corner.  And always remember that W is exactly like Marty McFly:  Call him "yellow" and watch him overreact, show his whole hand, and do something unambiguously impeachable.  

Eric -
You may want to check out the referenced articles by Wayne Madsen about the NSA way of doing business and "funny business." I found these during the Bolton-Foreign Relations Commttee-NSA dispute.
 
Unholy trinity of electronic snooping: Bolton, Negroponte and Hayden
http://www.onlinejournal.org/Special_Reports/050505Madsen/050505m
adsen.html

NSA intercepts for Bolton masked as 'training missions'
http://www.onlinejournal.org/Special_Reports/042505Madsen/042505m
adsen.html

Question for you, from your work do you know anything about this Madsen?  I wonder if he is respected since what he writes is inflammatory.

From Devon:

"I might be talking ignorance here, but my understanding is that the Yoo doctrine holds that the president has unconstrained (I almost wrote 'unlimited,' but that's probably inaccurate) power in regards to the conduct of war.  I think that can be extended (by those who buy into this crap) to wiretapping (though that's a mighty stretch), but not to elections..."

Imagine this announcement moments after the next terrorist attack (coincidentally, just 2 weeks before the election) :

"We all remember how Al-Qaeda prevented Spain from continuing in the War On Terrorism after a dastardly terrorist attack. America cannot afford to abandon it's committment to this fight, so to protect our National Security, I, as Commander-In-Chief, have to "temporarily" postpone this election until America has recovered from this trauma and can again think clearly..."

You get the idea.

as usual- bill comes lately!(a ton of comments! anyhow- here goes. Mr J- and all out there- If the Times held this up and if the time line eventually shows that this action was is effect prior to the o4 election- well? What then?
 Thats all I have now- I'm off into the ether to see if I can find out more. This could be the big one folks. The really big one.
          &nbsp
; billjpa@aol.com

Except the Yoo doctrine holds that we're at war whenever the President says we are. And when we're at war, the President has extraordinary powers to do anything he thinks is necessary to win, regardless of the law or constitution. It's absurd, but it's why Bush and Rice et al. can "honestly" say that anything Bush has done is legal. Under the Yoo doctrine, almost nothing the President does can be illegal, simply because the President does it to "make us safe."  We've heard this argument before--Nixon made it too. Looks like it's time to set another example for future dictators-in-the-making.

Impeach Cheney too!

Why?
I'm serious. Why would they avoid getting warrants? They're easy to get, and there are provisions if speed is an issue. It's really simple. You tell a judge why you need it and he or she grants it. They go through the trouble of getting a finding from the Justice Dept, but not the bother of getting a warrant?  The only reason to end run the process is if you know the judge will not issue the warrant.

Of course, this raises the question of who were they spying on? I wonder how many of these 'enemies' were mere political foes?

Nixon's enemies list lives on - this time with I guess everyone who doesn't approve of W's plutocracy (aristocracy? semi-dictatorship?) on it.

Yoo's legal declarations is to Bush what a crooked doctor's phony prescriptions is to an addict..wink...wink

.... if the court wants to balk that's their decision to make. Bush doesn't want them to have the option of balking so he breaks the law and avoids them. Illegal and impeachable!

Would that leave Denny Hastert in charge, or Al Haig?

Or maybe the head of the Democratically controlled House in 2007.... 

shit. you folks still don't get it. the nsa has been monitoring you since the implementation of the echelon project. that is over a decade ago.

and what made that arrangement so nifty is that it allowed illegally obttained nsa monitoring of us citizens to be passed to the kiwis, who could pass it back as "third party" intercepts.

and the bushits have always had access to this data.

and then there is the carnivore project. the congressionally-sanctioned purview of your internet activity without warrant.

and then there is the patriot act, allowing feds to invade your residence without a warrant and take anything that they please.

come on, folks. the camel put more than his nose in the tent. and the nancy pelosis of this world gave them those vouchsafes, those abrogations of your constitutional protections.

the democrat party sold your rights out as eagerly as did the republican party.

this is adolf's amerika, now, bub. get out of the country or join the white rose society.

cause you aren't going to be liking what is going to be coming down. and the demtillians will be as anti-constitutional as the reptillians.

Yes.  There is plenty to impeach Bush on.  And damn would that be emotionally satisfying (provided Cheney was impeached as well, of course).  But is that really the best long term political play?  I don't think so.
An impeachment simply continues the left/right, red/blue, ultra partisan tit for tat that's been ongoing since Nixon.  The next Democrat elected president would be subjected to endless smear tactics and "scandal" investigation in the name of payback.  
This bitterly partisan political cycle has to be stopped in order for this country to govern itself more rationally.  The only way to do that is to turn moderate conservatives against the far right radicals.  As painful and dangerous as it is, three more years of constant exposure to this administration's ineptitude and corruption just might do that.