Enemy Of The State

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Thank you to John Stephenson, via A J Strata

Saying that the Bush administration’s illegal spying on Americans must end, the American Civil Liberties Union today filed a first-of-its-kind lawsuit against the National Security Agency seeking to stop a secret electronic surveillance program that has been in place since shortly after September 11, 2001.
“President Bush may believe he can authorize spying on Americans without judicial or Congressional approval, but this program is illegal and we intend to put a stop to it,” said ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero. “The current surveillance of Americans is a chilling assertion of presidential power that has not been seen since the days of Richard Nixon.”

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of a group of prominent journalists, scholars, attorneys, and national nonprofit organizations (including the ACLU) who frequently communicate by phone and e-mail with people in the Middle East. Because of the nature of their calls and e-mails, they believe their communications are being intercepted by the NSA under the spying program. The program is disrupting their ability to talk with sources, locate witnesses, conduct scholarship, and engage in advocacy. The program, which was first disclosed by The New York Times on December 16, has sparked national and international furor and has been condemned by lawmakers across the political spectrum.

In addition to the ACLU, the plaintiffs in today’s case are:

Authors and journalists James Bamford, Christopher Hitchens and Tara McKelvey

Afghanistan scholar Barnett Rubin of New York University’s Center on
International Cooperation and democracy scholar Larry Diamond, a fellow
at the Hoover Institution

Nonprofit advocacy groups NACDL, Greenpeace, and Council on American Islamic Relations, who joined the lawsuit on behalf of their staff and membership

“The prohibition against government eavesdropping on American citizens is well-established and crystal clear,” said ACLU Associate Legal Director Ann Beeson, who is lead counsel in ACLU v. NSA. “President Bush’s claim that he is not bound by the law is simply astounding. Our democratic system depends on the rule of law, and not even the president can issue illegal orders that violate Constitutional principles.”

Note special emphasis on this line:

“Because of the nature of their calls and e-mails, they believe their communications are being intercepted by the NSA under the spying program.”

From Michelle Malkin:

And be sure to familiarize yourselves with the ACLU lawsuit filed today to stop the dot-collecting NSA program. The plaintiffs, who have no idea whether they have been surveilled under the program, but are claiming standing because they think they might be among the targets, are:

• American Civil Liberties Union
• American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan
• Council on American-Islamic Relations
• Rabiah Ahmed
• Arsalan T. Iftikhar
• National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers
• Joshua Dratel
• Nancy Hollander
• Greenpeace
• James Bamford, journalist/author
• Larry Diamond, Hoover Institution, Stanford University
• Christopher Hitchens, journalist/author
• Tara McKelvey, journalist/author
• Barnett Rubin, New York University Center on International Cooperation

The Times is back in the attack mode today, excited at the prospect of involving the NSA in what is no more than an FBI bureaucratic turf war:

In response to the F.B.I. complaints, the N.S.A. eventually began ranking its tips on a three-point scale, with 3 being the highest priority and 1 the lowest, the officials said. Some tips were considered so hot that they were carried by hand to top F.B.I. officials. But in bureau field offices, the N.S.A. material continued to be viewed as unproductive, prompting agents to joke that a new bunch of tips meant more "calls to Pizza Hut," one official, who supervised field agents, said.

The views of some bureau officials about the value of the N.S.A.'s domestic surveillance offers a revealing glimpse of the difficulties law enforcement and intelligence agencies have had cooperating since Sept. 11.

The N.S.A., criticized by the national Sept. 11 commission for its "avoidance of anything domestic" before the attacks, moved aggressively into the domestic realm after them. But the legal debate over its warrantless eavesdropping has embroiled the agency in just the kind of controversy its secretive managers abhor. The F.B.I., meanwhile, has struggled over the last four years to expand its traditional mission of criminal investigation to meet the larger menace of terrorism.

Marc Schulman @ The American Future: There are two things worth noting here: (1) The data collected by the NSA was sent to the proper authority (the FBI), so there’s no allegation that the data was being used by the CIA to spy on Americans; and (2) there’s no allegation that the FBI, as a result of using the NSA’s data, arrested innocent Americans.

An interesting albeit oposing point of view from Nicholas Katzenbach, who worked under Bobby Kennedy in senior positions in the DOJ, and then became Attorney General under President Johnson.

For those who may have missed John Hinderaker's post, here he analyzes the President’s program and surveyed the applicable law and found “under the Constitution and all controlling precedents, the NSA intercept program is legal.” In his update to that post, he provides a link to the Justice Department rationale upon which President Bush relied.

The talented left blogger Glenn Greenwald has been discussing the subject on his own blog in almost every post, and here he thrashes it out with our own Anti Media in my comments section.

In modern day America, this is how elections are prepared for, on the back of historic days like yesterday (video @ The Political Teen) More from the canidate here. Quite shameful. And this is how they are won.

UPDATE: A Jeff Goldstein must read translation of the ACLU press release, and Debbie Schlussel has more information on the Plaintiffs.

More @ Atlas Shrugs, The Political Pit Bull, The Astute Blogger, The Daily Pundit, The Washington Monthly, Bill Faith,

RELATED ON ATB: The Bugging Tap Dance, The Constitution Is Not A Suicide Pact

Comments

[Darrell]

"If the Democrats were saying exactly the same thing in 1998 and 1999..." There's no "if"..we've all heard the tapes(seen te news quotes). Even you. What do you call someone that knows the truth but says something different? See Antimedia's Point 1, if you need any additional confirmation. Clinton got "diverted" by "personal issues" and decided to let it go(after "Wagging the Dog")...Pity the politician that relies on polls to govern.

More and more I like this man Bush...

[antimedia]

Ghost, you really have no clue, do you?

1) During the Clinton administration, Congress passed and Clinton signed a resolution that made regime change in Iraq the official policy of the United States government. It was up to Clinton to invade, and he chose not to.

2) Sanctions worked? You actually believe that? Haven't even heard of the Oil For Food scandal? You know, the one that allowed French, German and Russian pols to enrich themselves by buying Saddam's oil at a discount, in return for which they promised never to invade? And Kofi too? And his son Kojo too? Man, Ghost, you really need to get out more.

3) Dick Cheney was trying to get sanctions removed. True statement, but it reveals that you haven't a single clue about how one goes about doing their job. Cheney was Chairman of Halliburton at the time. It was his job to lobby Congress to get the sanctions removed. Ever heard of a lawyer representing a client in a suit, the principles of which he totally disagrees with, because that's what his client wants?

4) As far as Iraq being a strategic blunder - tell that to the Iraqis, who have now agreed to drive Al Qaeda out of their country, form a government and {{{{gasp!!!}}}} join the world of sane governments.

You need help, buddy. Serious, clinical help.

[Ghost Dansing]

If the Democrats were saying exactly the same thing in 1998 and 1999, why didn't the Republican majority in Congress insist on invasion then? They all knew what the real deal was, and the heavy rhetoric was all about getting UN inspectors back in, and maintaining sanctions...not invading Iraq.

Dick Cheney was trying to get sanctions on Iraq removed during the Clinton years, and after.

In 2001 Cheney's energy task force was considering lifting economic sanctions against Iran, Libya, and Iraq as part of a plan to increase America's oil supply, and of course increase profits for his corporate buddies.

If the war in Iraq has demonstrated anything, it is that sanctions worked in Iraq. Even there these Republicans were on the wrong side of the fence when it counted.

Sympathetic analysts argue that Washington had no way of knowing how serious the threat of Iraqi WMD was, so intelligence agencies provided the administration with a wide-ranging set of estimates. In the post-September 11 security environment, the argument goes, the Bush administration had little choice but to assume the worst. Critics charge that the White House inflated and manipulated weak, ambiguous intelligence to paint Iraq as an urgent threat and thus make an optional war seem necessary.

A recent report by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, for example, found not only that the intelligence community had overestimated Iraqi chemical and biological weapons capabilities but also that administration officials "systematically misrepresented" the threat posed by Iraqi weapons.

Iraq was the war they wanted to do, not the one they had to do. The choice was a strategic blunder for the war on terrorism, and then it was executed badly.

[Darrell]

The "Bush Lied" meme is proof positive that the MSM has lost all its credibility. Since every member of the Clinton administration(incluing Al Gore) was saying the exact same words as Bush in 1998 and 1999, and those words are on videotape, "Bush Lied" should never see the light of day unless someone has specific knowledge that the Dems were lying at the time. And Bush knew about it. A functioning Press would reduce anyone saying "Bush Lied" to an irrelevant buffoon with all the exculpatory material they have at their fingertips. Everytime.

As for the Constitution, it's alive and well and doing better than ever. Maybe you on the Left are looking at a different version. The one with "right to privacy" in it. The real one has words like "unreasonable search" instead. And legions of Constitution scholars supporting Bush's actions.

[antimedia]

Ghost, are you off your meds again?

[Ghost Dansing]

It is peculiar that some Americans who would be outraged by the burning of the American flag are positively sanguine about the trampling of the Constitution.

One of the ugliest aspects of this Republican administration is the outright deceit that is the most notable aspect of its modus operandi. Tens of thousands of men, women and children are tragically dead because of the war in Iraq, which was launched from a monstrous superstructure of deceit. Why wouldn't we expect the administration to deceive the public about the illegal spying of the National Security Agency?

During the period when this eavesdropping was still secret, the Dubya went out of his way to reassure the American people on more than one occasion that, of course, judicial permission is required for any government spying on American citizens and that, of course, these constitutional safeguards were still in place.

Why is dubya illegally spying on Americans when the administration can so easily comply with the law by secretly getting warrants from the terminally compliant court established by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act?

Warrants for domestic eavesdropping were not only easily available, but could even be obtained retroactively.

The most plausible explanation is that this Republican administration is engaging in surveillance that they don't want the FISA judges to see. They are engaging in the kind of Big Brother tactics that will turn this society from a free one into an authoritarian one.

Al Gore offered a civics lesson this week for anyone willing to listen.

[antimedia]

mikeomatic - thanks for the Hitchens quote. Pretty dumb.

[Kenny Pierce]

Mike,

If you have the quote right, Hitchens's attitude is something you pick up extremely frequently from Old Media: the self-anointed press consider themselves to be a virtual fourth branch of government, and certainly they consider their "pursuit of the truth [insofar as it is convenient to their personal agendas]" just as important as national defense. This may be a defensible proposition, but my point is that Old Media does not defend is so much as it narcissistically assumes it.

I don't know if Hitchens in particular is really blind to the fact that if he doesn't get a story, that is rather less significant to the well-being of his fellow Americans than if our national defenders don't stop a dirty-bomb terrorist attack in Manhattan. I do know that if there's anybody in America capable of such fatuous self-absorption it would be an Old Media reporter.

[mikeomatic (Michael Andreyakovich)]

Hitchens DID make a statement. It was something to the effect of, "I have journalistic contacts in the Middle East, people who supply inside info, and these are the kind of people who might break off contact with me if they suspected I was under surveillance. The threat of surveillance is a deterrent to my successful performance of my journalistic duties."

So when you boil it down, he's saying that his right to gather information supersedes the right of the federal government to gather information. Let's just say I don't agree with his conclusion.

[Darrell]

The latest compromise of our national security is Bush's fault? Now I've heard everything! "You made us do it, I say!"

I think the Left is having flashbacks of every treasonous act, of every direct or indirect death threat they leveled against Bush, Cheney, Ashcroft, and Rove over the last six years. Remembering every word they said on the phone, every keystroke they made on the internet...Remembering their pledges to European Socialist programs like "10 Euros" where money is openly solicited to kill American soldiers by providing arms, ammunition, and explosives to the terrorists- the "freedom fighters" they love so. And wondering about who was listening--who was watching. We were, my friends...We were...That's why they had no fear of Eschelon and Carnivore during the Clinton years and why they ignore those programs now...

[A. Magnus]

D. Ox, I like the nom de plume...wouldn't've gotten it if you hadn't included the blog URL, though. I'm not that quick on the uptake.

[D. Ox]

Dear Alexandra,

You might check out our past comments on this silly business. Hello? Echelon? Carnivore? Hypocrisy of the left???

Also, today's post on the supposed "right to die" is of interest to you and your readers.

Thanks for some great info on the NSA-gate hypocrisy. It'd be hilarious if it weren't so dangerous.

All the best,
D. Ox
http://thomistic.blogspot.com

[antimedia]

Ghost, you just confirmed my suspicion. Whatever the Times prints, you swallow, hook, line and sinker.

If you read the article carefully, they admit that the program helped identify terrorist cells in three American cities, and there have been convictions from those. In the two disputed cases you mention, the agencies doing the disputing have a vested interest in saying that the NSA's help was minimal at best. Furthermore of the "dozens" of government officials the Times interviewed, a careful analysis reveals that there were most likely three primary sources who had any knowledge at all of the NSA program.

So, your gullibility is now a proven fact.

[Kenny Pierce]

I should also say that Bush is indeed a Texan, but only somebody unfamiliar with the true redneck breed could possibly confuse him with a redneck. (Here's a hint: if your daddy went to Yale and keeps a house in Kennebunkport, you can certainly be an oil-rich Texan and you can certainly wear a cowboy hat, but you're not gonna be at home in any Southern town where the uniform of choice is gimme caps, overalls with circles worn into the back pockets, and farmers' tans.)

[Kenny Pierce]

For the benefit of new lurkers I should state explicitly that the previous post was tongue-in-cheek chain-yankin'.

[Kenny Pierce]

Cynical ex-hippie,

I'm flabbergasted (let me help you out here: that is sarcasm) to have to point this out, but having spent half my forty years living in Austin and the other half in Oklahoma, I have known more than my share of both ex-hippies and rednecks; and the rednecks have about a twenty-point per capita advantage in IQ -- and when we get to honesty, self-control, integrity and patriotism, why then the rednecks really start to pull away.

For one thing, Budweiser does a helluva lot less damage to mind and body than do LSD and syphilis...

[Ghost Dansing]

This Republican administration has offered steadily weaker arguments to defend the decision to eavesdrop on Americans' telephone calls and e-mail without getting warrants. One argument is that the spying produced unique and highly valuable information. Vice President Dick Cheney, who never shrinks from trying to prey on Americans' deepest fears, said that the spying had saved "thousands of lives" and could have thwarted the 9/11 attacks had it existed then.

But what's the fact? The National Security Agency flooded the Federal Bureau of Investigation with thousands of names, e-mail addresses, telephone numbers and other tips that virtually all led to dead ends or to innocent Americans.

About the only result the administration has been able to dredge up on behalf of the spying program is the claim that the information it gained helped disrupt two plots: one to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge and one to detonate fertilizer bombs in London. But officials in Washington and Britain disputed the connection. And that plot to cut down the Brooklyn Bridge with a blowtorch has been trotted out so many times that it would be comical if the issue were not so serious.

The only thing the Republican's illegal maneuver accomplished was to compromise NSA's actual abilities by making the whole issue a public venting right in the middle of the war on terror.

That's the definition of incompetence, but not the only example to be provided by this Republican administration.

[Matt]

Great photo!

[Liquid]

I think Hitchens has already made a statement, but for the jounalist involved, I think they are more worried about keeping their commutative line flowing without the paranoia that wiretapping is going to cause for their sources.

[Nasty_Ninety]

Good grief, there are plenty of unscrupulous lawyers who will take your case even if the preponderance of the evidence indicates your right to privacy hasn’t been violated, get real. Just look at the ACLU!!!

[antimedia]

mikeomatic, why do you say that? Hitchens could be taking a principled stand for what he believes. Keep in mind, Hitchens is a liberal and a principled one at that. He has consistently written accurately about the war and chastised those who are living in fantasy land. Furthermore, he could, like me, want to see this thing adjudicated because he believes the President will win in court and it will shut people up.

I would withhold judgement on Hitchens. I expect he'll be writing about his reasoning in the near future. It will be much easier, then, to judge why he did it.

[Liquid]

IMHO, Mikeomatic, I bet if you could do a poll on the list that are claiming that they 'might' be among the targets, you 'might' be suprised to find how many are lefty athiests that 'might' have agendas of their own to join in with the ACLU.

[mikeomatic]

And I used to have such respect for Chris Hitchens. Now we know he's just as paranoid and untrustworthy as any modern Leftist.

[Nasty_Ninety]

Why is it that I am not the least bit surprised that the ACLU would do this sort of thing? Let’s look for a moment into the future. If somehow the ACLU succeeds in squashing this eavesdropping on the terrorists who are living amongst us (remember all the 9-11 terrorists somehow managed to not get themselves thrown into jail prior to 9-11-2001) and an attack that is far worse then 9-11 happens, who do you suppose the ACLU is going to point a finger at screaming “traitor” or “unfit for command”? That’s right, the very same people they condemn for invading the privacy of Americans. I have to remind all of you that our right to privacy in the USA is only a Penumbra, by a Penumbra I mean that the right to privacy exists but to a lesser degree. In times of war, when we know we have the enemy amongst us are we to not try to find those who would destroy us from within? Are we to let them freely without any fear of being caught and punished go about their devious plots for the sake of individual privacy? They would certainly contend “YES” with a resounding shout!! Anyway, I hope that they find something on all these enemies of the USA who long for the destruction of this great nation. We all want our privacy, but when the enemy is living here in the USA as sleeper cells, we all have to accept the fact that we might have to pursue a redress of grievances concerning our right to privacy on an individual basis for the sake of national security.

[Liquid]

Hmmmmm, who are you calling a dumb redneck?

"Are we in more danger now than the founding fathers when they were outnumbered and outgunned?"

Actually ex-hippie, the founding fathers didn't have to deal with nukes or chemical weapons and if you can't see the difference in those and gun with bayonets or cannons well, you might want to check out the difference in the damage they each can do.

[antimedia]

cynical ex-hippie, I want to see someone take the administration to court and make the argument, on the public record, that tracking people who take phone calls from terrorists is a bad thing - an invasion of privacy - a horrible breach of our civil rights. That asking the FBI to follow up on phone numbers found on the computers and cell phones of captured and killed terrorists is a stunning invasion of our privacy. That should be quite the interesting argument.

Before you hyperventilate, keep in mind that the only thing we know about the program is what the administration has told us. Innuendo and accusations from anonymous sources passed to biased media sources do not count as evidence. When this thing goes to court, a lot of people are going to be very embarrassed, just as they will be when Scooter Libby's trial gets underway and certain journalists are compelled to testify under oath.

There is a chasm between the "evidence" the media puts forth and the evidence a court will accept.

[cynical ex-hippie]

I'm flabbergasted that I need to point this out, but judicial oversight of the President does not prevent him from doing his job. Being a dumb redneck does. Stop confusing the two.

The ACLU suit does not say, "Stop spying on terrorists." It says, "Respect this country's civil liberties."

You remember those things our grandfathers fought and died for? Are we in more danger now than the founding fathers when they were outnumbered and outgunned?

Please tell me that wiretapping Americans without a warrant (even a FISA retroactive one) is less serious than perjury in a dismissed civil suit. Because, otherwise it is an impeacheable offense.

A Presidnet using the security apparatus to spy on political opponents has happened before. But what are the chances of history repeating itself, right?

[Darrell]

Funny. I never had any expectation of privacy when using the telephone. Firstly, the telehone companies always told you(in their phone books)that calls may be monitored by phone company personnel. They also told you that "obscene or harassing" phone calls were against the law. Most people had "party" lines at one time or another, and calls could be heard by who knows how many people. Then we had the media reports on the Eschelon Program during the 1990's tellng us that the NSA was listening in randomly to phone calls looking for certain "trigger" words or combinations. Wireless signals can be intercepted by anyone. Ask Prince Charles. Or Newt Gingrich.

So why all the boo-hooing now? Why indeed. Funny, I keep seeing constitutional legal scholars saying they don't believe their was any violation of any existing law. But then, all you have to do is find the right judge, don't you?

[Liquid]

I agree with you anitmedia. I think it was Mark Twain that said, "Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please."

Anyway, IMHO as an American, after 911, I understand that the security dream of being PRE-911 is behind me. Waking up to this reality is hard for some, and honestly, I don't care who listens into my phone convos or even monitors my activity online if it's going to protect the security of my country. I am not doing anything illegal, so it's no sweat off my brow and if my neighbor or someone three states over from me is interacting with a terrorist or involved in something diabolical, I want someone to be a step ahead of "the plot" I am all for doing what one has to do, since these terrorist are so sneaky and duplicitous. Maybe the London bombings didn't sink in for some, considering they were homegrown participates. Do some actually feel immune to what is going on? Wishful denial I guess then, but ask yourself what good is "our civil rights" which so many feel have been stepped on if we aren't around to enjoy any of them?

And come on, maybe alot of you are not aware that your phone records have been easy target for some time. I would like to see a law passed to protect our phone records That is important to me because criminals and terrorist have those available to them if they want to buy them, but you don't see too many crying about that yet have you?

[antimedia]

Oh, good Lord, Ghost, could you possibly engage in any greater hyperbole?

American values we hold most dear have been placed at serious risk by the unprecedented claims of the Administration to a truly breathtaking expansion of executive power.

Those "unprecedented claims" have been made by every administration since FISA became law, including Jimmy Carter, Clinton, Reagan and Bush I. "Breathtaking expansion" is a breathtaking mischaracterization, to say the least.

The Executive Branch of our government has been caught eavesdropping on huge numbers of American citizens and has brazenly declared that it has the unilateral right to continue without regard to the established law enacted by Congress to prevent such abuses.

"Huge numbers of American citizens"? Would that be the 500 or so admitted by the Times? In a population approaching 300 million, that's hardly even a microdot.

"Brazenly declared that it has the unilateral right"? No, that would be aggressively declared that it has the Constitutional right.

Try getting your facts straight instead of regurgitating liberal talking points. Impeach Bush? Not likely, but I'd love to see the Dems push that before the 2006 elections. Afterwards we could ask them, "How'd that work out for you?" :-)

[Ghost Dansing]

American values we hold most dear have been placed at serious risk by the unprecedented claims of the Administration to a truly breathtaking expansion of executive power.

The Executive Branch of our government has been caught eavesdropping on huge numbers of American citizens and has brazenly declared that it has the unilateral right to continue without regard to the established law enacted by Congress to prevent such abuses.

On Martin Luther King Day, it was especially important to recall that for the last several years of his life, Dr. King was illegally wiretapped-one of hundreds of thousands of Americans whose private communications were intercepted by the U.S. government during this period.

The FBI privately called King the "most dangerous and effective negro leader in the country" and vowed to "take him off his pedestal." The government even attempted to destroy his marriage and blackmail him into committing suicide.

This campaign continued until Dr. King's murder. The discovery that the FBI conducted a long-running and extensive campaign of secret electronic surveillance designed to infiltrate the inner workings of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and to learn the most intimate details of Dr. King's life, helped to convince Congress to enact restrictions on wiretapping.

The result was the Foreign Intelligence and Surveillance Act (FISA), which was enacted expressly to ensure that foreign intelligence surveillance would be presented to an impartial judge to verify that there is a sufficient cause for the surveillance.

One month ago, Americans were told the shocking news that in spite of this long settled law, the Executive Branch has been secretly spying on large numbers of Americans for the last four years and eavesdropping on large volumes of telephone calls, e-mail messages, and other Internet traffic inside the United States. The The President had decided to launch this massive eavesdropping program without search warrants or any new laws that would permit such domestic intelligence collection.

During the period when this eavesdropping was still secret, the President went out of his way to reassure the American people on more than one occasion that, of course, judicial permission is required for any government spying on American citizens and that, of course, these constitutional safeguards were still in place.

The President's soothing statements turned out to be false. Moreover, as soon as this massive domestic spying program was uncovered by the press, the President not only confirmed that the story was true, but also declared that he has no intention of bringing these wholesale invasions of privacy to an end.

What we know about this pervasive wiretapping compels the conclusion that the President of the United States has been breaking the law repeatedly and persistently.

A president who breaks the law is a threat to the very structure of our government.

Our Founding Fathers were adamant that they had established a government of laws and not men. Indeed, they recognized that the structure of government they had enshrined in our Constitution - our system of checks and balances - was designed with a central purpose of ensuring that it would govern through the rule of law.

As John Adams said: "The executive shall never exercise the legislative and judicial powers, or either of them, to the end that it may be a government of laws and not of men."

An executive who arrogates to himself the power to ignore the legitimate legislative directives of the Congress or to act free of the check of the judiciary becomes the central threat that the Founders sought to nullify in the Constitution.

The President's men have minced words about America's laws. The Attorney General openly conceded that the "kind of surveillance" we now know they have been conducting requires a court order unless authorized by statute. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act self-evidently does not authorize what the NSA has been doing, and no one inside or outside the Administration claims that it does. Incredibly, the Administration claims instead that the surveillance was implicitly authorized when Congress voted to use force against those who attacked us on September 11th.

This argument does not stand.

First, another admission by the Attorney General: he concedes that the Administration knew that the NSA project was prohibited by existing law and that they consulted with some members of Congress about changing the statute. Gonzalez says that they were told this probably would not be possible. So how can they now argue that the Authorization for the Use of Military Force somehow implicitly authorized it all along?

Second, when the Authorization was being debated, the Administration did in fact seek to have language inserted in it that would have authorized them to use military force domestically - and the Congress did not agree. Senator Ted Stevens and Representative Jim McGovern, among others, made statements during the Authorization debate clearly restating that that Authorization did not operate domestically.

When President Bush failed to convince Congress to give him all the power he wanted when they passed the AUMF, he secretly assumed that power anyway, as if congressional authorization was a useless bother. But as Justice Frankfurter once wrote: "To find authority so explicitly withheld is not merely to disregard in a particular instance the clear will of Congress. It is to disrespect the whole legislative process and the constitutional division of authority between President and Congress."

Some here are servants of King George. I, for one, am not... and standing as an American say impeachment is in order.

[antimedia]

I welcome the ACLU's lawsuit. I can't wait to see the looks on their faces when the courts rule that the spying is perfectly legal and the President is well within his rights. It will be a precedent-setting decision, much like the Times' eagerness to get the "leakers" in Plamegate now comes back to haunt them in the investigation to get the "whistleblowers" behind the NSA story.

There's nothing like hypocrisy being hoist on its own petard to make my day.

[Kenny Pierce]

I was living and working in London when Gore tried to liven up his image by smooching Tipper, but did so in such cigar-store-Indian fashion that it only confirmed his dorkiness to audiences worldwide. What I remember most is the front-page picture of the kiss in one of the London tabloids along with the hilarious headline: "Last of the Red-Hot Robots."

I remember thinking, "Man, if the Shrub can't beat this slab of marginally animate meat by at least fifteen points, then even if he wins it'll go down as the weakest winning campaign in the history of electoral politics." Which, of course, it pretty much did.

[North by Northwest]

Yeah - you can tell he's warming up to run for the presidential nomination. It's just that he is so obvious about it. Fat chance he'll get the ticket though when his own base has this to say about him:

Al Gore is at it again. In a speech that really does have some good points, he ultimately demonstrates why he really was no more fit to be president than the current would-be dictator at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

In Gore's speech, he praises Abe Lincoln as "our greatest president" while at the same time mentioning how Lincoln trashed the Constitution. The whole thing is a mess of contradictions and ignorant statements about history.

Yet, Gore weaves his speech around a real threat to our liberties, that being the overwhelming power of the executive branch of government. of course, when Gore was in power, his administration engaged in the worst massacre of Americans since Wounded Knee, but no one was accountable for anything. Thus, I need to ask myself why I ever would listen to this guy? If he were willing to admit the murderous acts of his own administration, then I guess I would be more likely to pay attention to him. Right now, however, he says the right things, but if he ever were given power, we know how he would wield it.

Gotta love the Dems: "Right now, however, he says the right things...". That's what it is all about. Bashing the opposition is what gains credibility amongst the base, not issues; not in Gore's case, he's written off, but nevertheless a core requirement. Lieberman lost all his chances when crossing the Politburo.

[James]

So when does this go to the next level? The NSA's monitoring calls of terrorists. The terrorists are calling people in the US. The ACLU sues saying they believe their calls are being monitored. Ergo, they are saying they get calls from terrorists. When are we going to see questions asked as to why are they getting calls from terrorists? :)

[Liquid]

Well, this doesn't suprise me about the ACLU...I am sure they get nervous considering the individuals they support/defend/interact with....OMGOSH can you imagine getting to listen into the converssations between the ACLU and CAIRE? What about when the ACLU offered free council to anyone that was being questioned by the FBI after 911? Oh yes, I am sure the ACLU wants any snooping into such phone calls concerning them to stop ASAP. Think about it..its very hard to undermine this country with it's own constitution while the govt is "listening in" The ACLU doesn't feel its fair. LOL

It reminds me of when the Ford Foundation & the Rockefeller Foundation started demanding all of their grant recievers via a clause to pledge that they wouldn't use funds to support terrorist groups or terrorist activities or anyone on the watch lists. Oh the ACLU went nuts and cried fowl over having to compromise any responsibility and was furious about "their civil rights" being infringed because they felt the "watch list" wasn't fair either. So since they wouldn't agree to the stipulation, the ACLU gave back something like over a million dollars of grants they had taken. So, IMHO, it doesn't suprise me...the ACLU wants to put everyone in to accountability but themselves when it comes to interacting with terrorist or "suspicious" characters.

[Peter V. Bella]

Al Gore also weighed in two speeches. He not only deems this a legal issue, but a legitimate political issue for candidates as well. Remember, he wrote the US Constitution before he invented the internet and discovered global warming.

The POTUS has the responsibility of protecting the American people. Terrorism is the ultimate in unconventional warfare and requires unconventional means to defeat it. The ACLU and its supporters and patrons must be stopped.