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December 20, 2005A round-up on “listening in”George Will asks, Why Didn’t He Ask Congress? Gonzales answered that question yesterday, not that anyone in the press was listening in: In his news conference yesterday, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales addressed this. Question: If FISA didn’t work, why didn’t you seek a new statute that allowed something like this legally? Gonzales: … We’ve had discussions with members of Congress, certain members of Congress, about whether or not we could get an amendment to FISA, and we were advised that that was not likely to be — that was not something we could likely get, certainly not without jeopardizing the existence of the program, and therefore, killing the program. And that — and so the decision was made that because we felt that the authorities were there, that we should continue moving forward with this program. Byron York reminds us that Clinton Claimed Authority to Order No-Warrant Searches and asks if no one remembers that. In response, Clifford May quotes Jamie Gorelick, the erector of walls between the CIA and FBI: Gorelick: 1994 “The Department of Justice believes, and the case law supports, that the president has inherent authority to conduct warrantless physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes and that the President may, as has been done, delegate this authority to the Attorney General. “It is important to understand, that the rules and methodology for criminal searches are inconsistent with the collection of foreign intelligence and would unduly frustrate the president in carrying out his foreign intelligence responsibilities.” - Jamie Gorelick testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee on July 14, 1994, as quoted by Byron today elsewhere on NRO. May says: Gorelick is making a simple point: The rules are different when there is a Democrat in the White House. What about that don’t you understand? Hmmmm…The ever-disgraceful Jay Rockefeller releases his CYA letter, which proves that the WH did talk to congress, after all. The press, I am sure, will be more interested in that Rockefeller letter than it ever was in this Rockefeller memo The WSJ looks at Why the founders gave more power to the president in security matters. Barbara Boxer asks if Bush has committed an impeachable offense…but she asks that question almost every day, as do John Kerry and Nancy Pelosi Michelle Malkin has the indispensable round-up. Read Vanderleun The left is still not serious. http://theanchoressonline.com/2005/12/20/a-round-up-on-listening-in/trackback/ 6 Responses to “A round-up on “listening in”” |
December 20th, 2005 at 1:22 pm
[...] Today’s Wall Street Journal has an excellent editorial defending the President’s wiretapping decision and blasting congress’s irresponsible attack on the President’s constittutional authority. (Hat tip: Anchoress) [...]
December 20th, 2005 at 2:25 pm
Gonzales Defends Domestic Spying
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said President Bush has the authority to conduct “very limited” su
December 20th, 2005 at 3:40 pm
Excellent Anchoress! I made basically the same argument to my bf the other night- although I did not have the evidence on hand to back me up :-). I was certain that Bush was not the first president to wiretap w/o warrants.
December 20th, 2005 at 6:56 pm
We are very serious, indeed.
Serious enough to actually read the article you cite:
“Even after the administration ultimately agreed with Congress’s decision to place the authority to pre-approve such searches in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court…”
Whatever the opinions of either the Bush or the Clinton Administrations on this matter, that had better happen again.
December 20th, 2005 at 9:43 pm
This is not accurate. In 1994, physical searches were not part of FISA. They were not included until the law was amended in 1995. So, Gorelick was not arguing either then nor did Gorelick argue after the law was amended that Clinton had the right to circumvent FISA. The Clinton administration viewed FISA as a law which had to be followed. Bush is arguing that he is entitled to ignore FISA. (Although at least twice in 2004 he claimed to have conducted no wiretaps of U.S. persons suspected of being terrorists without first obtaining FISA warrants.)
The statements about Echelon are also not accurate. Surveillance of U.S. persons under Echelon was always done in compliance with FISA, with warrants. George Tenet testified to this before Congress in 2000:
“There is a rigorous regime of checks and balances which we, the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency and the FBI scrupulously adhere to whenever conversations of U.S. persons are involved, whether directly or indirectly. We do not collect against U.S. persons unless they are agents of a foreign power as that term is defined in the law. We do not target their conversations for collection in the United States unless a FISA warrant has been obtained from the FISA court by the Justice Department.”
December 20th, 2005 at 11:44 pm
“If you made a phone call today or sent an e-mail to a friend, there’s a good chance what you said or wrote was captured and screened by the country’s largest intelligence agency. The top-secret Global Surveillance Network is called Echelon, and it’s run by the National Security Agency and four English-speaking allies: Canada, Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand.”60 MINUTES
Television Broadcast February 27, 2000 Steve Kroft, reporting…
No warrants, no court supervision. Just like Custom’s searches. Just like States going after records of your internet cigarette purchases to collect back taxes without benefit of statute of limitations.