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And thus legitimate debate ends...aps said:If there ever was a trial, you bet I would be thrown off the jury, and I would have no shame in admitting that I do not apply to him that he is innocent until proven guilty.
cnredd said:And thus legitimate debate ends...
aps said:The rumors have been that it was an intelligence professional who leaked the warrantless wiretapping. Does anyone have any suspicions?
Justice Dept. to probe leak of spy program
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10651154/
oldreliable67 said:aps: "What is wrong with people who have read the facts and read varying opinions and determined that there was no legal basis upon which the Bush administration could conduct warrantless wiretaps?"
Absolutely nothing wrong with that. Where the rubber meets the road is where those opinions and interpretations are held out as the one and only truth. The inability to say "This is what I've read/seen/heard and it leads me to believe that it is highly likely that he is guilty of blah blah blah" instead of "He's guilty! I don't care what anyone says, he is guilty!" is a sign of a mind that is closed to consideration of other points of view.
BTW, here is another jurist who believes the Bush admin may be on solid legal ground. Charles Fried teaches constitutional law at Harvard Law School; in an article in the Boston Globe, he says, in part:
"The president claims that congressional authorization for military action against Al Qaeda, together with his inherent constitutional powers, make such action lawful. There is some plausibility to that claim but until tested in the courts it is impossible to give a definitive opinion about it.
...
The resolution of this dilemma to allow both the use of an important tool of national security and respect for the rule of law needs ingenuity, discretion, and a good faith search for sensible solutions. So far I have heard only alarmist and hyperbolic pronouncements calculated neither to illuminate nor resolve this problem."
Notice two things about his comments: (1) plausible legal grounds but not definitive until a court test, and (2) denunciation of the hyperbole and alarmist approach to consideration of the questions at hand. This guy makes a lot of sense, IMO.
His article is at:
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/30/
the_case_for_surveillance/
Lefty said:I don't believe anyone ever said: "He's guilty I don't care what anyone says! He's guilty." That was never the attitude that I or anyone else had.
aps said:I won't have a problem with being proven otherwise. If he's found innocent, he's found innocent. It's no big deal.
oldreliable67 said:Fooled me. Given the tone of some of your previous posts, I have the impression otherwise - it seems a very big deal and you seem very, very certain, to the point of brooking no other opinions. If that impression is incorrect, well, my apologies, but please consider that my impression came from...your comments.
Well heck let's just lay it all out in the open, tell you what why don't we all promise not to tell the terrorist how we are trying to capture and kill them and we can just open up NSA and CIA and DIA. Let's be an OPEN society and government.Lefty said:I'm still not sure how leaking this is hurting national security. How is knowing that our government is knowingly and actively breaking the law a bad thing? I am glad someone leaked this information because I respect democracy and our Constitution, and so should the executive branch of government. The Justice Department is investigating the wrong thing here.
aps said:Well, when the Dept. of Justice is a co-conspirator and condones the warrantless wiretapping, that pretty much takes away that option.
aps said:Well, when the Dept. of Justice is a co-conspirator...
Stinger said:Well heck let's just lay it all out in the open, tell you what why don't we all promise not to tell the terrorist how we are trying to capture and kill them and we can just open up NSA and CIA and DIA. Let's be an OPEN society and government.
But tell ne why was everyone so upset of the meaningless Plame leak but this one which DOES involve highly secreative matters is just honky dory?
And as far as your claim that the law has been broken, no it hasn't not according to the courts and the constitution.
oldreliable67 said:For one to be a co-conspirator, there must first be a conspiracy. Pretty difficult to have a conspiracy when the AG furnishes a legal opinion with precedents and many congress folk are briefed and aware of the program.
Lefty said:No one ever said we should have everything out in the open, it's pointless for you to come here and argue that.
As for the Plame leak, people were upset about that because it's believed by some that a woman's carrer was ruined because her husband was going public that things the administration were saying were not true.
The information about warrentless wiretapping that was leaked recently is a concern to the public because we want to know that our president is obeying the laws and constitution.
As for your claim about the law and constitution, I would urge you to actually read and understand both before coming here and making baseless claims.
oldreliable67 said:aps,
Sent you a PM.
aps said:Got it. :lol: I can't believe what you said about Stinger.
I don't want the Times deciding, in wartime, just what information I "deserve to have", thank you very much - they are not elected, they are not accountable, and frankly, I do not trust their politics. But rather than abandon my fellow citizens to the mercies or depredations of the Bush Administration, let me offer a constructive suggestion - since we have a representative democracy, complete with institutional checks and balances and two parties, how about if the purveyors of classifed info, when troubled by their consciences, take their troubles to a Congressional oversight committee rather than the NY Times?
So, in my world, we have a government, we have laws, we have an outlet for intel community whistleblowers - why couldn't these concerned citizens rally a few Congressman to their cause? And let's note - the Democrats controlled the Senate Intel Committee from the Jeffords defection in 2001 until the new Congress was sworn in in Jan 2003. What went wrong? Find me a Dem with a voice and the courage to speak out! What will Hillary say? (Or is it possible that the oversight Dems encouraged these folks to go public, asserting that they could only help if the discussion was carried out on the front page of the NY Times? The Times will never tell, but it could never be - these were good leakers, and pure of heart.)
THE New York Times's explanation of its decision to report, after what it said was a one-year delay, that the National Security Agency is eavesdropping domestically without court-approved warrants was woefully inadequate. And I have had unusual difficulty getting a better explanation for readers, despite the paper's repeated pledges of greater transparency.
For the first time since I became public editor, the executive editor and the publisher have declined to respond to my requests for information about news-related decision-making. My queries concerned the timing of the exclusive Dec. 16 article about President Bush's secret decision in the months after 9/11 to authorize the warrantless eavesdropping on Americans in the United States.
oldreliable67 said:Apparently secrecy is ok for the NYT, but not the Bush admin.
Why don't you enlighten us by posting the case law you are using in your assessent.My assessment is that the preponderance of the evidence is against a finding that what he did was within his power.
aps said:The New York Times is not one of the branches of our federal government. There isn't any check and balances when it comes to a private newspaper.
Gill said:aps:
Why don't you enlighten us by posting the case law you are using in your assessent.
It's based upon articles I have read, several people with whom I have spoken, my own review of the constitution, and the unanimous holding in UNITED STATES v. UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT, 407 U.S. 297 (1972), which held the following:
1. Section 2511 (3) is merely a disclaimer of congressional intent to define presidential powers in matters affecting national security, and is not a grant of authority to conduct warrantless national security surveillances. Pp. 301-308. [407 U.S. 297, 298]
2. The Fourth Amendment (which shields private speech from unreasonable surveillance) requires prior judicial approval for the type of domestic security surveillance involved in this case. Pp. 314-321; 323-324.
(a) The Government's duty to safeguard domestic security must be weighed against the potential danger that unreasonable surveillances pose to individual privacy and free expression. Pp. 314-315.
(b) The freedoms of the Fourth Amendment cannot properly be guaranteed if domestic security surveillances are conducted solely within the discretion of the Executive Branch without the detached judgment of a neutral magistrate. Pp. 316-318.
(c) Resort to appropriate warrant procedure would not frustrate the legitimate purposes of domestic security searches. Pp. 318-321.
intelligence information deemed necessary to protect the nation from attempts of domestic organizations to attack and subvert the existing structure of the Government
The Supreme Court wanted to make it very clear that this ruling does NOT affect cases involving "foreign powers or their agents."We emphasize, before concluding this opinion, the scope of our decision. As stated at the outset, this case involves only the domestic aspects of national security. We have not addressed, and express no opinion [407 U.S. 297, 322] as to, the issues which may be involved with respect to activities of foreign powers or their agents.
Gill said:Sorry aps, but this case has no bearing on the NSA surveillance controversy. It dealt strictly with domestic warrantless wiretaps with NO foriegn entity involvement.
From the case:
The ruling also has the following nugget:
The Supreme Court wanted to make it very clear that this ruling does NOT affect cases involving "foreign powers or their agents."
It is Jackson's [opinion] I believe, which has best stood the test of time. Presidential power, he said, was of three kinds.
- The first was where the President acted pursuant to a congressional delegation of authority, and here presidential power was at its apex. The President had not only the power of the Executive, but the power of the Legislature, behind him, and only if the act was beyond the authority of the federal government itself would a presidential act be struck down.
- The second case was where the President acts in the absence of any congressional expression on the subject one way or the other; there he has the power of the Executive, but not that of Congress behind him.
- The third is presidential power at its nadir: where the President takes measures to deal with a situation in a particular way, whereas Congress has said it should be dealt with in a different way.
This in Jackson's view, was the situation in the Steel Seizure Case, and that was why he joined in ruling the seizure unconstitutional. Although no one else on the Court joined Jackson's opinion at the time, the Court since then has cited it as governing law.
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