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TechnoratiAdministration Pulls Back on Surveillance Agreement
WASHINGTON - Senior Bush administration officials told Congress on Tuesday that they could not pledge that the administration would continue to seek warrants from a secret court for a domestic wiretapping program, as it agreed to do in January.
Rather, they argued that the president had the constitutional authority to decide for himself whether to conduct surveillance without warrants.
As a result of the January agreement, the administration said that the National Security Agency's domestic spying program has been brought under the legal structure laid out in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires court-approved warrants for the wiretapping of American citizens and others inside the United States.
But on Tuesday, the senior officials, including Michael McConnell, the new director of national intelligence, said they believed that the president still had the authority under Article II of the Constitution to once again order the N.S.A. to conduct surveillance inside the country without warrants.
During a hearing Tuesday of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Mr. McConnell was asked by Senator Russ Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, whether he could promise that the administration would no longer sidestep the court when seeking warrants.
"Sir, the president's authority under Article II is in the Constitution," Mr. McConnell said. "So if the president chose to exercise Article II authority, that would be the president's call."
The administration had earlier argued that both the president's inherent executive powers under Article II of the Constitution, as well as the September 2001 Congressional authorization to use military force against Al Qaeda, provided him with the power to conduct surveillance without warrants.
Mr. McConnell emphasized that all domestic electronic surveillance was now being conducted with court-approved warrants, and said that there were no plans "that we are formulating or thinking about currently" to resume domestic wiretapping without warrants.
"But I'd just highlight," he said, "Article II is Article II, so in a different circumstance, I can't speak for the president what he might decide."
The exchange came as the administration is seeking new legislation to update the surveillance act to expand the government's surveillance powers, in part to deal with vast changes in communications technology since 1978, when the measure was enacted.
The White House says that the outmoded rules embedded in the law mean that the government cannot eavesdrop on some telephone calls, e-mail and other communications that do not involve Americans or impinge on the privacy rights of people inside the United States.
While administration officials, citing national security concerns, have declined to discuss publicly what communications gaps they wish to plug, their proposed legislation seems designed to single out so-called "transit traffic," purely international telephone calls and e-mail that go from one foreign country to another, but happen to be digitally routed through the United States telecommunications system.
The administration's proposal would also provide legal immunity for telecommunications companies that cooperated with the National Security Agency's surveillance program without warrants before it was brought under the surveillance act in January. It would also provide legal protections for government workers who took part in the N.S.A. program.
Several Democratic lawmakers expressed frustration on Tuesday that the administration had not provided documents related to the National Security Agency program, which the White House called the Terrorist Surveillance Program. They suggested that they would be reluctant to agree to a change in the surveillance law without more information from the White House.
"To this day, we have never been provided the presidential authorization that cleared that program to go or the attorney general-Department of Justice opinions that declared it to be lawful," said Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island. "Where's the transparency as to the presidential authorizations for this closed program? That's a pretty big 'we're not going to tell you' in this new atmosphere of trust we're trying to build."
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
15 Comments so far
Show AllWhen the people fear their government, you have tyranny.
When the government fears the people, you have liberty.
Thomas Jefferson
Another nail being hammered into the coffin of the Constitution. Impeach, now!
Bush blunders ahead despite Americans' approval because he is the puppet of an international corporate machine in part run by corporations that basically ran the Axis Powers fascist machines of the 1930s and 1940s (business allies of his granddaddy). Among the several is Furukawa Electric, which today has US military contracts for the Iraq war, and was recently on trial in East Asia for its concentration camps and forced prostitution in China. 'Conspiracy Theory' or not, the world is quickly being monopolized by the same old fascist corporations and families that tried to build the New World Order touted by Hitler. If you are still not convinced, read The New Germany and the Old Nazis by T H Tetens, and do a web-search on Furukawa Electric, and find out that it is controlling much of the telecommunications network in the United States with the help of fascistic American corporations closely aligned with the Bushes.
why is it that bush has so much courage and blusters forward regardless of the moral abyss he's in and his lack of support from the american people? at the same time, democrats can't stop saying compromise and can't stop deferring to that piece of sh*t even though they do have the support of the people and all the political capital anyone could ask for? cheney has been working for decades to expand the powers of the president at the expense of the legislature and i feel like the frog in the pot that is starting to get its *ss burned...
yes, impeach bush!!!
Does this must mean that when the Dems, or Independents take the White House they will have the same powers? Maybe they will do onto the republicans as they have done unto us! Impeachment is the only way to start the purge that is needed to save this country.
"The administration's proposal would also provide legal immunity for telecommunications companies that cooperated with the National Security Agency's surveillance program without warrants before it was brought under the surveillance act in January. It would also provide legal protections for government workers who took part in the N.S.A. program."
In a nutshell, it would provide legal protections for a tyranical administration that broke the law, and protect corporations who were complcit in breaking the law for an administration with a pro-corporate agenda. To hell with the citizens of this country!
"FISA has already been amended numerous times. It doesn't need to be 'modernized,' it needs to be followed." Mike German, Policy Counsel, adds, "This proposal doesn't 'modernize' FISA. It guts it."
What is most frightening about the Bush proposal is that although the Administration claims – and many in the mainstream media are reporting – that the plans are an effort at modernization and increasing the monitoring of targeted foreign persons (which is troubling enough), it's really about increasing surveillance of Americans too, according to Mike German." " - The Nation
Read entire article at:http://www.thenation.com/blogs/edcut?bid=7&pid=187608
The following is from the Declaration of Independence. Read it and count the number of violations that have taken place over the last 6 years.
"He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.
He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.
He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.
He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:
For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing taxes on us without our consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:
For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses....
In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people."
I have only one comment: IMPEACHMENT!!!
All this, one thing after another, a contintuous unravelling of the Constitution. the indifferent slide to despotism, and the public still slumbers in a groggy stupor.
No public outrage not even in Congress, the body being stripped of its powers.
One can only wonder what it will take to wake up the masses.
That is the new world order. Next will be the chip in you not just your passport. World dollar?
What trust are "we" trying to build. This is further evidence of a systematic unraveling of the constitution.
It's fascism, Marc. See me in Room 101 for a demonstration.
Whoa, that's the first time I've seen posting disappeared here. I guess there is censorship after all... I mean moderation. Sometimes it's a good thing.
Do they mean to tell me that anybody is still willing to listen to and believe these people?I would not talk to them about this fascism and slam the door in their face.They give you a choice of fascism and fear or their brand of freedom which is a gulag for every neighborhood like Bagdad.No choice at all.Tony
This is shades of the Military Commissions Act. The Bush administration asks Congress for wider wiretap authority, and they still won't commit to obeying whatever legal restraints are written into the FISA statute. Such chutzpah!
The most important part of the NSA legislation proposed by the White House of course is the little provision granting retroactive immunity to everybody who just might have violated the NSA warrant requirement and committed a federal felony during the last six years of Bush/Cheney unitary executive rule.
Give them the immunity, and the rest of the refinements about how long you can listen without seeking a warrant, or what hi tech forms of communication are exempt, will sort itself out quickly enough.
Give them the immunity, just like Congress gave immunity in 2006 right before the adjournment to campaign, granting immunity prospective and retroactive in the Military Commissions Act, to all those involved in torture and in the authorization of torture at Gitmo, abu Ghraib, Bagram, and all the other military/CIA detention facilities throughout the world.
Give them the immunity, and it all vanishes from their service records, so they can blend back into the civilian police/corrections system when they come home, or can move on to independent contractor work abroad using those valuable intelligence gathering skills.
Give them the immunity, and there's one less high crime and misdemeanor to worry about.
fashion... fafa.. ffffffff.... fish.
flashism (a highly animated form of fascism).
ahem... fehfee. fee fie foe fum... fuschiaism (a flowery form of fascism).
feesh... feces... fecalism...aw f it. I can't do it, Alfred!
Can you say 'fascism'?