Here's PROOF Bush broke no law!

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Well, it looks like he would break the law if he ever ordered a wiretap to go for more than 72 hours without a warrant.

Could it be that when he refers to "renewing" in the program multiple times in the past few years, he means issuing new orders for new 72-hour surveillance sessions.

It seems possible that the intel services were getting reports of terrorist activity through other sources, and then he was using legal presidential orders to authorize up to 72 hours of wiretapping in each instance, so that the NSA would have a chance to gather more detailed intel.

Well, it looks like he would break the law if he ever ordered a wiretap to go for more than 72 hours without a warrant.

or more than fifteen days after the war was declared...

to acquire foreign intelligence information for a period not to exceed fifteen calendar days following a declaration of war by the Congress.

Congress has NOT declared War. The invasion against the government of Iraq ended and the people of Iraq have formed a new government. The 1978 Act requires the President to go to the court within 72 hours of an emergency wire tap which he DID NOT DO!

Finally, the press has uncovered a news clip where President Bush flatly stated on April 20, 2004 that a "Court Order is required for All wire taps".

His own words on April 20, 2004 confirm that Bush broke the laws of this country. This is Bush's Watergate!

Your Boy stepped in it this time! This will not go away. We first need to get Cheney to resign and appoint a new VP so when Bush is removed we have a president that this nation can unite around. We have another Nixon/ Agnue in the GOP!

Congress does not actually have to say the Special Code Words "we are officially at war", in order to authorize the Executive branch to wage war. They could, for example, simply authorize him to wage war. Which is what they did.

The articles of the Act quoted in this article make it clear that the President does not have to go to the judge within 72 hours, only that he must stop the wiretap within 72 hours if he doesn't.

It's conceivable that Bush was mistaken about a court order being required for all wiretaps, and should not have said it. It's clear that his legal advisers (and many others) believe that in this case, in this context (the leeway granted by FISA and the leeway granted by the Congressional authorization for him to use military measures to combat terrorism) that a court order is not actually required for these wiretaps.

Or are you arguing that whatever the President says on TV is the highest law of the land, and supersedes not only FISA but every other federal statute on the books?

On another note, have you ever wondered if you're being manipulated by the media? And why aren't you calling for the heads of whoever leaked these details to the press in the first place? As I recall, in the Plame case you were all about punishing those who would dare to put political considerations ahead of national security and the personal safety of covert operatives. What about now?

ONLY the Congress can declare War per the Constitution NOT the President. George invaded Iraq he can not declare War and Congress NEVER declared war with Iraq. Below are the President's own words that state The Government MUST obtain a court order for wire taps from his April 20, 2004 speech:

Secondly, there are such things as roving wiretaps. Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act; constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution.

But a roving wiretap means -- it was primarily used for drug lords. A guy, a pretty intelligence drug lord would have a phone, and in old days they could just get a tap on that phone. So guess what he'd do? He'd get him another phone, particularly with the advent of the cell phones. And so he'd start changing cell phones, which made it hard for our DEA types to listen, to run down these guys polluting our streets. And that changed, the law changed on -- roving wiretaps were available for chasing down drug lords. They weren't available for chasing down terrorists, see? And that didn't make any sense in the post-9/11 era. If we couldn't use a tool that we're using against mobsters on terrorists, something needed to happen.

The Patriot Act changed that. So with court order, law enforcement officials can now use what's called roving wiretaps, which will prevent a terrorist from switching cell phones in order to get a message out to one of his buddies.

Thirdly, to give you an example of what we're talking about, there's something called delayed notification warrants. Those are very important. I see some people, first responders nodding their heads about what they mean. These are a common tool used to catch mobsters. In other words, it allows people to collect data before everybody is aware of what's going on. It requires a court order. It requires protection under the law. We couldn't use these against terrorists, but we could use against gangs.

Idiot Colon Bin Gangrene!

Why do you insist on living under the illusion that Iraq is the end all/be all to the war on terror? We are at war with Al Qaeda, the Talliban and all other anti Western Islamist groups who have been attacking us for decades now.

I know your allegiences are with the terrorists and any attempt to thwart another 9/11/01 breaks your heart, but guess what, YOU took an oath to defend the Constitution of the U.S against all enemies, FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. Since you retired, that oath has not expired... even if your honor has.

Fortunately, Prs. Bush isn't as quick to shed his responsibilities as scum like you.

Great Article DrMiler!! Keep up the good work!

The source of my post above is the White House see below:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/04/20040420-2.html

Prs. Bush probably didn't break any laws, but whoever the traitor was that leaked an on going war operation to the press sure did.

What's the difference between leaking an on going operation in the U.S. and one in Iraq? Something tells me that the scum who leaked it would do the same either way.

DEATH TO TRAITORS! I wonder which member of Congress (or staff) it was?

ParaTed 2k
That is why the 1978 act was passed to give the government the ability to fight terrorism. They even created a Special Court just for these wire taps and put into that law the ability for before the fact taps with court approved within 72 hours. It is pure BS that Bush had to ignore this law and the special court to protect our nation. NO ONE is saying Bush should not protect America just that he obeys the laws which he DID NOT DO!

Great Article DrMiler!! Keep up the good work!

Agreed, excellent article. Nailed the idiot C.O.L. hard enough to have him spinning in circles. If you keep going he'll wind up drilling himself a hole straight through to his commie friends in China.

Gene, in that same passage he says "nothing has changed". Since FISA was passed in 1978, and it allowed warrantless 72-hour wiretaps then, and it allows warrantless 72-hour wiretaps now, he's right when he says that nothing has changed.

Also, have you considered the possibility that he said all that without clarifying the FISA exception for national security reasons? What if he'd just authorized a 72-hour wiretap that morning, and the NSA was in the middle of gathering valuable intel about planned terrorist attacks on U.S. soil, during that press conference? Wouldn't that have been about the most retarded time for him to go on national TV and tell the world "by the way, we're also conducting warrantless wiretaps at will, according to the legal provisions of FISA and Congressional approval of military measures, so please take this opportunity to hide your terrorist planning sessions better"?

As a military man, you must be well versed in the concepts of counterintelligence and operational security. Don't you customarily reveal only a fraction of your true strength to the enemy? Could it be that the President, as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, was simply following the standard military procedure?

Bush did not get the Court approval within the 72 hours as the law provides. HE NEVER obtained court approval. He violated both what HE SAID and the LAW! The article is pure BS and ignores the facts. Look at the link you dip sticks and what Bush said!

bah!!! trying to rerason with bush haters is a futile waste of time.

If bush did nothing and a new attack happened then they would scream why did not Bush protect us? why did he not take extraordinary preventive measures.

bah!!

ParaTed 2k That is why the 1978 act was passed to give the government the ability to fight terrorism. They even created a Special Court just for these wire taps and put into that law the ability for before the fact taps with court approved within 72 hours. It is pure BS that Bush had to ignore this law and the special court to protect our nation. NO ONE is saying Bush should not protect America just that he obeys the laws which he DID NOT DO!

Colon Bin Gangrene, so why were the legal questions not raised when Prs. Bush first let Congress know about it? Why? Because there were no legal questions. It didn't become a question until some traitor leaked on going operations to the New York Times.

Whoever leaked this cost the lives of Americans and should be treated as an enemy of the Constitution.

Better look ay the AP article which said Sen. Rockefeller wrote a letter to Cheney over two years ago saying he did not understand what was being done and could not support it. It looks as if Cheney was the Water BOY to a few members of congress about this issue and the true actions were kept unclear. Also since they were all classified meetings, had one of the members of Congress come out to object, you would say they violated the security laws.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/12/16/america/web.1216spy.php

Your Boy stepped in it this time! This will not go away. We first need to get Cheney to resign and appoint a new VP so when Bush is removed we have a president that this nation can unite around. We have another Nixon/ Agnue in the GOP!

That is the second stupidest thing I have read on these forums. Congratulations col, you have taken the top two spots with your posts.

You would have said the same thing just before Nixon resigned! This is another Watergate! Very same issues and another GOP President! Better read what Bush said April 20, 2004. How do you explain that away?

This is another Watergate! Very same issues and another GOP President! Better read what Bush said April 20, 2004. How do you explain that away?

Give it two weeks and you won't hear anything else about this. This is another "scandal" that turns out to be nothing but the media and their DNC allies failing again.

Wisconsin Democrat Russ Feingold wants to be President, and that's fair enough. By all means go for it in 2008. The same applies to Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican who's always on the Sunday shows fretting about the latest criticism of the Bush Administration's prosecution of the war on terror. But until you run nationwide and win, Senators, please stop stripping the Presidency of its Constitutional authority to defend America. That is the real issue raised by the Beltway furor over last week's leak of National Security Agency wiretaps on international phone calls involving al Qaeda suspects. The usual assortment of Senators and media potentates is howling that the wiretaps are "illegal," done "in total secret," and threaten to bring us a long, dark night of fascism. "I believe it does violate the law," averred Mr. Feingold on CNN Sunday. The truth is closer to the opposite. What we really have here is a perfect illustration of why America's Founders gave the executive branch the largest measure of Constitutional authority on national security. They recognized that a committee of 535 talking heads couldn't be trusted with such grave responsibility. There is no evidence that these wiretaps violate the law. But there is lots of evidence that the Senators are "illegally" usurping Presidential power--and endangering the country in the process. The allegation of Presidential law-breaking rests solely on the fact that Mr. Bush authorized wiretaps without first getting the approval of the court established under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. But no Administration then or since has ever conceded that that Act trumped a President's power to make exceptions to FISA if national security required it. FISA established a process by which certain wiretaps in the context of the Cold War could be approved, not a limit on what wiretaps could ever be allowed. The courts have been explicit on this point, most recently in In Re: Sealed Case, the 2002 opinion by the special panel of appellate judges established to hear FISA appeals. In its per curiam opinion, the court noted that in a previous FISA case (U.S. v. Truong), a federal "court, as did all the other courts to have decided the issue [our emphasis], held that the President did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information." And further that "we take for granted that the President does have that authority and, assuming that is so, FISA could not encroach on the President's constitutional power." On Sunday Mr. Graham opined that "I don't know of any legal basis to go around" FISA--which suggests that next time he should do his homework before he implies on national TV that a President is acting like a dictator. (Mr. Graham made his admission of ignorance on CBS's "Face the Nation," where he was representing the Republican point of view. Democrat Joe Biden was certain that laws had been broken, while the two journalists asking questions clearly had no idea what they were talking about. So much for enlightening television.) The mere Constitution aside, the evidence is also abundant that the Administration was scrupulous in limiting the FISA exceptions. They applied only to calls involving al Qaeda suspects or those with terrorist ties. Far from being "secret," key Members of Congress were informed about them at least 12 times, President Bush said yesterday. The two district court judges who have presided over the FISA court since 9/11 also knew about them. Inside the executive branch, the process allowing the wiretaps was routinely reviewed by Justice Department lawyers, by the Attorney General personally, and with the President himself reauthorizing the process every 45 days. In short, the implication that this is some LBJ-J. Edgar Hoover operation designed to skirt the law to spy on domestic political enemies is nothing less than a political smear. All the more so because there are sound and essential security reasons for allowing such wiretaps. The FISA process was designed for wiretaps on suspected foreign agents operating in this country during the Cold War. In that context, we had the luxury of time to go to the FISA court for a warrant to spy on, say, the economic counselor at the Soviet embassy. In the war on terror, the communications between terrorists in Frankfurt and agents in Florida are harder to track, and when we gather a lead the response often has to be immediate. As we learned on 9/11, acting with dispatch can be a matter of life and death. The information gathered in these wiretaps is not for criminal prosecution but solely to detect and deter future attacks. This is precisely the kind of contingency for which Presidential power and responsibility is designed. What the critics in Congress seem to be proposing--to the extent they've even thought much about it--is the establishment of a new intelligence "wall" that would allow the NSA only to tap phones overseas while the FBI would tap them here. Terrorists aren't about to honor such a distinction. As Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press," before 9/11 "our intelligence agencies looked out; our law enforcement agencies looked in. And people could--terrorists could--exploit the seam between them." The wiretaps are designed to close the seam. As for power without responsibility, nobody beats Congress. Mr. Bush has publicly acknowledged and defended his decisions. But the Members of Congress who were informed about this all along are now either silent or claim they didn't get the full story. This is why these columns have long opposed requiring the disclosure of classified operations to the Congressional Intelligence Committees. Congress wants to be aware of everything the executive branch does, but without being accountable for anything at all. If Democrats want to continue this game of intelligence and wiretap "gotcha," the White House should release the names of every Congressman who received such a briefing. Which brings us to this national security leak, which Mr. Bush yesterday called "a shameful act." We won't second-guess the New York Times decision to publish. But everyone should note the irony that both the Times and Washington Post claimed to be outraged by, and demanded a special counsel to investigate, the leak of Valerie Plame's identity, which did zero national security damage. By contrast, the Times' NSA leak last week, and an earlier leak in the Washington Post on "secret" prisons for al Qaeda detainees in Europe, are likely to do genuine harm by alerting terrorists to our defenses. If more reporters from these newspapers now face the choice of revealing their sources or ending up in jail, those two papers will share the Plame blame. The NSA wiretap uproar is one of those episodes, alas far too common, that make us wonder if Washington is still a serious place. Too many in the media and on Capitol Hill have forgotten that terrorism in the age of WMD poses an existential threat to our free society. We're glad Mr. Bush and his team are forcefully defending their entirely legal and necessary authority to wiretap enemies seeking to kill innocent Americans.

Link

This has NOTHING to do with the DNC. This is BUSH and it will not go away unless Bush resigns! The 1978 Act provides the ONLY exception which requires going to court within 72 hours AFTER the wire tap. Bush did not obey that law pure and simple. It is time for the Supreme Court to settle this matter...

Gene, Watergate was about a President spying on the opposing political faction, in order to learn their campaign strategy and secure his own reelection.

This is about a President spying on assassins and saboteurs, in order to learn their war plans and prevent them from succeeding.

On that basis, I would have said something very different from what I am saying now, before Nixon resigned.

They are BOTH about spying on Americans without court approval. There was a legal way for Bush to protect America he chose not to obey that legal way and must not pay the price!