''Our position is that the authorization to use military force which was passed by the Congress shortly after Sept. 11 constitutes that authority,'' Gonzales said on CBS' ''Early Show.''

Works for me. I'm sure that's what Congress intended: "break any law you want."

Sheesh, how twisted can this be?



Because Ken won't post the rest of what Gonzales said.

"There were many people, many lawyers, within the administration who advised the president that he had inherent authority as commander in chief under the Constitution to engage in this kind of signals intelligence of our enemy," Gonzales said in an interview with CNN

Well, that seals the deal. Exactly how many people in the Judicial Branch (you know, the folks who check with the Constitution) or the Legislative Branch (the people who write the laws) were asked for their advice prior to enacting this policy? John Yoo saying it's okay (along with torture that doesn't damage major organs, of course) ain't enough for me, sorry.

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"Go yell at an M&M"

Well, that seals the deal. Exactly how many people in the Judicial Branch (you know, the folks who check with the Constitution) or the Legislative Branch (the people who write the laws) were asked for their advice prior to enacting this policy? John Yoo saying it's okay (along with torture that doesn't damage major organs, of course) ain't enough for me, sorry.



Look I am not trying to defend what the president did. You chose to present a quote that painted the admisnistration as renegades breaking laws. Congress is calling for another inquiry and I am sure it will all play out in the end who knew what and when and whether it was legal or not. In the mean time lets play out a scenario.

U.S. Intelligence agencies overseas discover the phone number of Osama bin Laden's satellite phone. Osama makes a satellite phone call to a U.S. citizen living outside of Chicago. Nobody's home. Intelligence operatives are certain that bin Laden will try to place the call again, but it may be from a different phone. They know that Osama changes phones frequently, so there is no time to waste in mining this resources. Their best chance to intercept bin Laden's next phone call is to place a tap on the U.S. citizen's phone. The next phone call may be in a matter of minutes, or hours. There is no time to go before a court to get a wiretap order. So Ken what do you do? Do you put the wiretap in place immediately, or do you take the chance of missing the next phone call from Osama while trying to get a court order? Now, before you answer, imagine that this might have been a phone call from bin Laden to Mohammed Atta an hour before Atta was to board that American Airlines flight in Boston. The call was bin Laden giving Atta the final go-ahead for the attacks of 9/11. Without a court order you intercept the call, discover the plot, and save 3000 lives. Wait for a court order and the 9/11 attacks go forward.

OK Ken there's your scenario. You're the president. You've taken an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States and to uphold its laws. Obviously this character living outside of Chicago has some ties to Osama bin Laden. Something may be in the works: another terrorist attack may be just hours away. Do you spend those hours trying to get a warrant? Or do you spend those hours trying to prevent the impending terrorist attack.

Now, with Bush there is, of course, no way he can win on this. In retrospect, if he goes ahead and orders the wiretaps on people who have clear ties to terrorism, he will be assailed by the left (Ken) for violating the law and ignoring our rights. If it is later discovered that he was aware of someone in this country with direct ties to terrorism but didn't take immediate action to monitor their activities, he will be accused by the left (Ken) of ignoring clear threats to our country. Leading to further stories of how he lives in a bubble and is sheltered from the realities of what is happening in the world.

If you consider this situation fairly, you will probably come to the realization that you are just happy that it isn't you that has to make the decision as to how to proceed.

You can make fun of it all you want, but the players are sticking by their guns because their legal analysis concludes that they are on firm ground. I am wagering they are probably right.

The ten or so people that leaked to the NY Times, however, have no leg to stand on. They are felons for violating the law I posted in another thread. Do you want them prosecuted?

You can make fun of it all you want, but the players are sticking by their guns because their legal analysis concludes that they are on firm ground. I am wagering they are probably right.

Is anyone surprised that White House lawyers are saying the President acted appropriately?

Congress is the injured party here because it is the authority of Congress that is being questioned in its battle with the White House. It's a classic struggle and it will be interesting to see if the Republican controlled congress backs the power of congress or caves to the Republican White House. Party vs. Constitution.

(you probably won't expect this response)

I tap the phone; I then present the evidence to the FISC court after the fact and get permission. What I don't do is say that it was all perfectly legal, no harm done, as the Bush Administration has done. What I do is say "I broke the law", and wait for the repercussions. In this case, there might not be any. If I'm not the President, and a court somehow convicted me, I'd expect a Presidential pardon post haste. If I am the President, I'd expect that the House would not initiate impeachment proceedings.

Again, your scenario concludes with a false dilemma, positing that there are only two options for the President, when I gave a third (which is the winning option).

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POTUS wouldn't have proceded without the lawyers approval. So the answer is no, I am not surprised. Of course, the answer you are looking for is that these top of the class lawyers are just toothless lapdogs. Pretty funny thought actually, but you will believe what you choose.

I definitely don't think they are toothless lap dogs. They are very bright and they came up with a legal analysis that supports the proposition that Bush acted appropriately under his power as commander in chief.

The problem is that Congress didn't give Bush the authority he exercised and that's why people like Arlen Specter are going to hold hearings. I think you will see more and more prominent Republicans in the Congress trying to get some distance from Bush.

Congress is free to hold hearings, and Specter is free to observe that there are limits to the powers of POTUS. If he were a better lawyer, he would add in that there are limits to the power of Congress too. That would be asking too much of the Senator who saw antitrust violations in the handling of Terrel Owens by the Eagle though.

Congress can pass as many War Powers Acts as it wants, but that doesn't mean POTUS is going to respect it as anything but an encroachment upon the Executive Branch by the Legislative Branch.

This whole policy was obviously very carefully thought out, tightly regulated, and reauthorized every 45 days with legal advice sought at every step. To simply say that it was illegal, is exactly that: simple.

You're right Art. The congress can pass a statute, the president can sign it thereby making it law, and later, if the President decides to bend the law it's okay because he believed he had the authority.

It seems pretty clear to me: The statute says that the government has to get approval from the court before it can conduct electronic surveillance on a subject. Any deviation is contrary to the law. FISA should have been modified post 9/11. The reality is that the government needs more power to conduct surveillance but it still has to act within the confines of the law until it gets that authority.

No statute can change the Constitution. Any encroachment upon Executive authority is going to under go a test of the balancing of interests of the coequal branches of government.

An intelligent weighing of the interests of a small number of suspected terrorists having whatever privacy rights they might have (if any) in the context of international communications vs. the interests of the Executive Branch to keep the country secure should easily come down in the favor of the Executive Branch in this context.

No president ever signed the War Powers Act, I believe, and none has ever recognized its authority. Congress has chosen to never test it because Congress would likely lose.

Art is not looking at an important fact. The administration has a history of assigning itself whatever powers it desires. Case in point, the White House lawyers determined that the administration could detain enemy combatants indefinitely without given them access to a lawyer or trial. It claimed those powers for itself. But when the Supreme Court took a look at it, it turned out that these powers were not constitutional and Bush had to either let these prisoners go, or file some kind of charges. (And Art, I will point out here that they filed lesser charges against Padilla, not the base charges, to keep him locked up, but I didn't here you complain about it.)

You can always find a lawyer to advocate for any position. That is their job. But I will submit to you that it is not good government to have lawyers working for the executive branch assigning powers to itself. I think you even can see the validity of that point.

Art, the law is the law. You can't deny that. The law says that Bush has to go to court to get the authority to conduct electronic surveillance. You can argue morality or ethics or emotion but you can't deny the law is what it is and Bush has violated the law. The standard for getting court approval is pretty low by the way, much lower than a normal criminal case.

The war powers act is also the law of the land and congress can cut off funding for a military operation it does not approve of. Very unlikely but it is still an authority granted to congress. Of couse it wasn't signed by any President but it is still the law. All Presidents since Nixon have made a token effort to comply with the requirements.

I acknowledge that Padilla is a very difficult case because he is a US citizen. Ultimately, the government found a way to deal with him.

You need to acknowledge in that same vein the fact that the Administration has been nearly 100% successful in every case in which it has been challenged.

Pretty good batting average.

I do argue that Bush did not violate the law. So do lots of other people. Bush is not going to shy away from this battle. He believes he is on firm legal ground for good reasons. Your the law is the law dictate just shows a lack of experience and understanding. (Be glad for the lack of experience. It is very expensive experience.) Things are simply not that simple.

The War Powers Act is the law of the land according to Congress. It needs only a test before SCOTUS before it is jettisoned. Congress can cut off funding for any military operation because it is granted that power by the Constitution.

He believes he is on firm legal ground for good reasons. Your the law is the law dictate just shows a lack of experience and understanding. (Be glad for the lack of experience. It is very expensive experience.) Things are simply not that simple.

You don't know what level of experience I have and that's a pretty weak argument to try and make stick.

I find it amazing that in your reach to support Bush you would willingly trample on the Bill of Rights. I drew you a diagram of the law and how it was violated by Bush and you choose to ignore that. I thought you were a serious person but I think you are playing games.

Suffice it to say I would be a richer man today if I had judges that ruled that the law was the law. My favorite cases were the ones where statutes of limitations were statutes of limitation, except when they weren't. My most expensive one was where it was successfully argued that the deceased had an implied contract with himself. Parse that one for a while.

I have provided a simple explanation of how there are serious competing interests in this matter, and you choose to ignore them. This will unfortunately sort out, and we will see who is right.

Art why not address my point above. It is hardly sufficient to say that the administration has proper legal cover because its own lawyers claimed that they can spy on citizens without warrants. You don't need a Ph.D. in Poli Sci to see the problem with that argument.

I thought you were a serious person but I think you are playing games.


It took you that long to figure this out? Come on tootall, the plain language of the law be damned, (not to mention your law degree) - Art has a gut feeling that nothing wrong happened here, so that's that.

Plus, you know, there's, like, the War Powers act or something.

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Art, which of the following scenarios is more likely:

1) Bush(in the global Bush administration sense) to attorneys: This is what we've been kicking around for intelligence gathering. Give me a memo that says whether we can do it or not.

2) Bush to attorneys: Find a legal argument that supports our ability to do this.

In other words, do you think the justification came first or the decision to go forward with the intelligence gathering. I know my clients invariably tend toward question/statement no. 2.

Additionally, if they are really arguing that the Congressional resolution referenced by Gonzalez gave them the authority to do this, they are reaching. Similarly, to assert some broad authority such as the powers "inherent" to the Commander in Chief authorize is not a particularly strong argument.

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f/k/a mclamb6

Are you implying that the Bush Administration draws the curve then plots the points? I'm aghast. I mean, it's not like they said "hey, we want to invade Iraq: let's find some justification for it", right?

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I thought I addressed your comments pretty well by acknowledging the difficulty of the unique situation involving Padilla. I also noted that Bush has been almost completely successful in court so far.

I didn't address the comment about lawyers assigning powers to the executive branch since they are just doing their job.

This whole thing is not even a fraction of one percent of the issue regarding Carnivor (sp?) and Echelon (sp?) during the Clinton Administration. To complain about these is laughable by comparison, though I admit those programs were troubling.

This whole thing is not even a fraction of one percent of the issue regarding Carnivor (sp?) and Echelon (sp?) during the Clinton Administration. To complain about these is laughable by comparison, though I admit those programs were troubling.

Ding, Ding Ding, Art has resorted to pulling out the Clinton card. That's the equivalent of the white flag.

I expect that it was a combination of both. They would have set up the policy with the expectation that some day they might have to defend it from an attack by Congress or by a leak.

Barring immediate disaster, no POTUS is going to act unless he thinks his butt is well covered.

As with the Elian case returning the kid to Cuba, no responsible Court is going to say that POTUS can't take those actions that he reasonably deems vital to conduct of foreign policy.