post-crime
Senator Arlen Spector has proposed a bill that would de-illegalize (I won't use the word legalize) the President's illegal wire-taps and torture and imprisonments and the like and would essentially give him unlimited authority during "a time of war." Despite even AG Gonzales's telling him that Congress does have authority in wartime, Spector justified the bill in a Washington Post op-ed.
Here's a series of snippets from Salon:
"Specter's bill (S. 2543) is titled the National Security Surveillance Act, and it is framed as a series of amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA. [...] In reality, Specter does not want to amend the mandates of FISA so much as abolish them. His bill makes it optional, rather than mandatory, for the president to subject himself to judicial oversight when eavesdropping on Americans, in effect returning the nation to the pre-FISA era. [...] Specter's bill will have three troubling consequences if it becomes law. First, it makes lawbreaking legal. When the New York Times revealed last December that the Bush administration has been eavesdropping without judicial approval for the past four years, it meant that the president has been systematically violating a law that makes such eavesdropping a crime punishable by up to five years in prison. If laws are to have any meaning, then elected officials cannot simply violate them with impunity. Specter's bill not only virtually guarantees there would be no consequences for this deliberate, ongoing criminality, but rewards and endorses the president's lawbreaking by changing the law to conform to the president's conduct. Richard Nixon infamously told David Frost in a 1977 interview that, by definition, "when the president does it, that means it is not illegal." Specter, in effect, wishes to make the Nixonian theory of presidential infallibility the law of the land. In the process, he also embraces a more modern and equally extreme theory of presidential power, and that is the second alarming implication of his bill. Specter's proposal is based on the plainly erroneous -- and truly radical -- premise that Congress has no power to regulate presidential war powers, as spelled out in Article II of the Constitution. [...] The third and worst thing that Specter's bill would do is place the president's FISA decisions beyond any kind of meaningful judicial review forever, and immunize the Bush administration from any real scrutiny of the legality and constitutionality of its conduct. By design, it would all but kill the various lawsuits pending around the country that allege the president and various telecommunications companies acted illegally when they intercepted the communications of Americans without the warrants required by law.
What I don't understand is this: when did the Right perfect the time machine? I mean, wouldn't a crime committed on January 1, 2006 still be a crime if the law wasn't changed until January 2, 2006? Or in this case 2010? And two: how did so many senators get out of civics class in high school?
Here's a series of snippets from Salon:
"Specter's bill (S. 2543) is titled the National Security Surveillance Act, and it is framed as a series of amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA. [...] In reality, Specter does not want to amend the mandates of FISA so much as abolish them. His bill makes it optional, rather than mandatory, for the president to subject himself to judicial oversight when eavesdropping on Americans, in effect returning the nation to the pre-FISA era. [...] Specter's bill will have three troubling consequences if it becomes law. First, it makes lawbreaking legal. When the New York Times revealed last December that the Bush administration has been eavesdropping without judicial approval for the past four years, it meant that the president has been systematically violating a law that makes such eavesdropping a crime punishable by up to five years in prison. If laws are to have any meaning, then elected officials cannot simply violate them with impunity. Specter's bill not only virtually guarantees there would be no consequences for this deliberate, ongoing criminality, but rewards and endorses the president's lawbreaking by changing the law to conform to the president's conduct. Richard Nixon infamously told David Frost in a 1977 interview that, by definition, "when the president does it, that means it is not illegal." Specter, in effect, wishes to make the Nixonian theory of presidential infallibility the law of the land. In the process, he also embraces a more modern and equally extreme theory of presidential power, and that is the second alarming implication of his bill. Specter's proposal is based on the plainly erroneous -- and truly radical -- premise that Congress has no power to regulate presidential war powers, as spelled out in Article II of the Constitution. [...] The third and worst thing that Specter's bill would do is place the president's FISA decisions beyond any kind of meaningful judicial review forever, and immunize the Bush administration from any real scrutiny of the legality and constitutionality of its conduct. By design, it would all but kill the various lawsuits pending around the country that allege the president and various telecommunications companies acted illegally when they intercepted the communications of Americans without the warrants required by law.
What I don't understand is this: when did the Right perfect the time machine? I mean, wouldn't a crime committed on January 1, 2006 still be a crime if the law wasn't changed until January 2, 2006? Or in this case 2010? And two: how did so many senators get out of civics class in high school?
posted by stella at 9:01 AM
1 Comments:
Yes, what did they get out of civics class, which used to be called "government" in my time?
What these legislators got was the ability to twist the real meaning into what they want the Constitution to mean for them, not what it says, which any person with a sixth grade education can deduce for themselves!
And, I'm ROFL when Spector calls himself a "civil lilbertarian"! Nothing in his bill has anything to do with libertarian thought! Nothing.
Plus, Gonazales says that the President does have unlimited powers during war, but, the Cogress has NOT declared war; only Bush has declared there is a war. So, in any event, with no declared war, Bush does not have this unfettered power he claims to have.
Wake up Americans, thes Neo-cons who call themselves "Republicans" (another misnomer), are running roughshod over you by saying a continuous stream of mis-statements which you don't seem to notice are mis-staements (otherwise known as lies) and just complacently accept that they're speaking the truth which is the last thing a neo-con would ever say.
Changing the FiSA law as Spector would have it changed will put every innocent American in their own governments gunsights again. Remember what happened to the Japanese Americans? Without the requiments of FISA, you're next.
And do you recall that the so-called terrorists in Florida were really a bunch of incompetents who couldn't find Chicago on their most lucid day, but were tracked-down and framed-up by the govenment thugs who were doing the calling of their paranoid leaders. Paranoia spreads to all the lowere ranks. Wihtout FISA and the oversight of the other two branches of the government, you Will be next. Just say something in one of your emails or phone calls that the paranoid gov boys don't like, and you'll be next sitting in the detention camps which Halliburton is building (another version of the Japanese detention centers).
Do we really want to give an incompetent, paranoid, never-grew-up pResident Bush or any future leader unfettered power to do anything he wishes? I don't think so. That's why we left England to begin with. Why repeat past mistakes? Gee, the Founding Fathers had a real reason for implementing a balance of power between the three brances of government. The reason should be jumping in your face at this point. If it isn't, do you have even a clue what your Constitution says?
Just take a look at Bushie Boy and ask yourself if he should be given unlimited power without the oversight of anyone. Just plain common sense will tell you that no one should be given the power of a virtual dictator. That's exactly what Bush and Cheney are aiming for.
Now, you can wake up and prevent this trasition to a dictatorship, or wander on your way and not give a darn until you find yourself in the dictators sights too, which will happen sooner or later. That's what unfettered power is all about.
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