How So?

[bobman0330]

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Can't be. Ten thousand wire taps have been approved by the FISA court under Democratic and Republican presidents. Five have been turned down. The administration has vowed to hunt down and kill every member of Al Qaeda and invaded and occupied Iraq. But now that they find out there might be a few wiretaps without going to the FISA court for post-wiretapping approval they'll decide to be stealthier in their communication?

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I think you might be giving the terrorists too much credit. Whatever their leaders may know academically, impressing onto a bunch of hotheaded youths the importance of maintaining strict secrecy in communications has to be a lot harder when all you can talk about is a hypothetical possibility of espionage than when NSA spying is plastered across the front page of the NYT every day. To put it another way, if a perfectly legal NSA wiretap program was exposed, would you think that was a good thing? Why are we keeping this stuff secret in the first place then?

Also, how does the hang-Karl-Rove-as-a-traitor crowd distinguish this case from that one?

[BluffTHIS!]

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But I want them to follow the law in doing it, not claiming they can do it just because they want to. They can follow the law, keep them secret, and do their job to protect us.

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From previoius threads, it seems like court decisions do show that the president is acting legally. However, since as I pointed out in one of those that the only way to challenge the legality of same is for the subject of one of those warrantless wiretaps to do so, which is unlikely, then there might seem to be no legal redress *if* the president is not in fact acting legally. So if you mean the president is counting on that catch 22 to do what he wants while avoiding legal measures, then perhaps your hubris argument has some merit.

But the key here is that Congress has the ability to modify FISA and make it even more clear. Since the repubs won't do that, then keep voting democrat. But the fact is that via Congress, our system does provide potential checks to presidential power. Unless of course the president does have that inherent constitutional power that Congress cannot limit. In that case write your congressman regarding a constitutional ammendment.

[PartyRocks!]

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"The fact that somebody leaked this program causes great harm to the United States," President Bush said before returning to Washington from a holiday break at his Texas ranch. "There's an enemy out there."

I can't see how.

Anyone? Thanks.

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I don't know about great harm blah, blah blah, but whoever did it broke the law in a significant way and will be sent away for a very very long time at a minimum.

[andyfox]

How about the guy who broke the law in the first place?

[BluffTHIS!]

See my post above and other threads on this. Prove he broke the law, i.e. that the president does not have such inherent constitutional powers (at least during wartime however that is defined), or don't assert that the prez did break the law. And in regards to the court rulings I posted in the other thread, unless the SCOTUS should overturn those rulings, or at least in regards to what is taking place now with warrantless wiretaps, then those court rulings validate the opinion of the AG that the president is acting legally. Which of course means the leaker has not a leg to stand on. Again, prove otherwise or don't continue to assert the opposite. Of course if you want to advocate that congress via some law or an ammendment should change this, then that is a different matter.

[ElliotR]

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From previoius threads, it seems like court decisions do show that the president is acting legally.

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No.