Alberto Gonzales Sets the Record Straight on Surveillance

The take-away comment!

 

Here's another great column by Molly Ivins about Gonzales. She nails him.


Ivins: A tale of two depressingly different Texans

Molly Ivins
Friday, February 10, 2006

Once upon a time, in the middle of a nasty constitutional crisis in Washington, a most unlikely hero emerged — a Texas lawyer from one of our state's notoriously discriminated-against racial minorities. Think how lucky we were.

It is one of the most famous sentences in all of American rhetoric: "My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total." But what catches the eye today is the sentence that followed that famous declaration, the sentence that makes one so ashamed for U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Barbara Jordan's great, deep voice brought the impeachment hearings against Richard Nixon to an awed silence when she vowed, "And I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution."

Thirty years ago, this state could produce Barbara Jordan — and now we send Gonzales. Enough to provoke a wailing cry of "O tempera, O mores!" even from the depths of Lubbock.

As a New York Times editorial succinctly put it, Gonzales' Judiciary Committee appearance was a "daylong display of cynical hair-splitting, obfuscation, disinformation and stonewalling." How fortunate that Republicans running the committee did not insist the chief law enforcement officer of the United States take an oath before testifying.

I realize it's a cliche for those of us who remember the Beach Boys to mourn the days when giants roamed the Earth and all was on a grander and finer scale. But I knew Barbara Jordan, and I know Al Gonzales, and it is depressing.

It seems to me the trumpery excuse for a hearing raised graver issues than those of 30 years ago. Gonzales kept trying to frame the issue as a question of whether or not a domestic spying program without warrants is illegal — in fact, it is against the law.

Gonzales maintained that the law is superseded by some unwritten constitutional power due the president during time of war — and further that Congress had authorized warrantless spying when giving the president the authority to invade Afghanistan. Strange, so few who voted for invading Afghanistan recall having warrantless spying in mind.

One problem of legal logic is to "define war." We have not been attacked by another nation — in fact, we were clearly the aggressors against Iraq. We were attacked by a private group of ideological zealots led by a Saudi millionaire. This war — against no nation, flag or territory — can presumably last indefinitely, like our wars against drugs and crime.

Jordan observed: "(Impeachment) is designed to 'bridle' the executive if he engages in excesses. . . . The Framers confined in the Congress the power, if need be, to remove the president in order to strike a delicate balance between a president swollen with power and grown tyrannical, and preservation of the independence of the executive. . . . 'A president is impeachable if he attempts to subvert the Constitution.' "

Nixon was accused, among other things, of misuse of the CIA. I highly recommend James Risen's new book, "State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration." Risen is the New York Times reporter who broke the story of the National Security Agency spying scandal.

Thomas Powers, an authority on American intelligence, reviewed the Risen book for The New York Review of Books and notes: "If the Constitution forbids a president anything, it forbids war on his say-so, and if it insists on anything, it insists that presidents are not above the law. In plain terms, this means that presidents cannot enact laws on their own, or ignore laws that have been enacted by Congress. . . .

"In public life, as in kindergarten, the all-important word is no. We are living with the consequences of the inability to say no to the president's war of choice with Iraq, and we shall soon see how Congress and the courts will respond to the latest challenge from the White House — the claim by President Bush that he has the right to ignore FISA's prohibition of government intrusion on the private communications of Americans without a court order and his repeated statements that he intends to go right on doing it."

The time is coming when someone will have to say no. Sadly, I have a vision of the impeachment panel, and I see Tom DeLay in the seat once occupied by the great Barbara Jordan.

http://www.statesman.com/opinion/content/editorial/stories/02/10ivins_edit.html



Keep D&D Civil.

 

First off, I did the research to examine the heart of the matter when it comes to the communication criteria of the issue.

In my search, one thing came to mind and that was USSID 18. I clearly noted that my method of looking at this was based on this word search, after I realized through MY OWN research that this is a keen topic. How I know about USSID 18 is by connecting the legality of the communication issue through a search.

I did paste the following in it's whole:
Under Section 4 of USSID 18, communications which are known to be to or from U.S. persons can't be intentionally intercepted without: (a) the approval of the FISA court...; OR (b) the approval of the Attorney General of the United States with respect to "communications to or from U.S. PERSONS outside the United States...international communications" and other categories of communications including for the purpose of collecting "significant foreign intelligence information

The only reason I did was this summized the content in a way that was substantial... SamFffffisher still doesn't provide contrary evidence in any meaningful way that thrawts what I posted!
He did post a pic of guns which got me excited, but can he post content which truly illegitimizes the paste I inferred from USSID 18. I forgot to give credit to the paste, besides that it is ALL MY WORD.

If attacking me on forgeting this one time to give credit to a paste is the best counter SamFffffisher can do without providing specific information that counters that pastejob, then he is a sad law case to say the least.

* credit myself for setting the record straight.

 

wasn't this his main reply?

so are USSIDs law that supercedes the US Constitution and FISA?

who wrote them?

 

I guess that was his main counter, but it was weak and non-countering of the issue...

Here is more on United States Intelligence Directive 18 from the lastest 1993 assertion by the NSA. It is based on the source, AND I did the "research" to find it...

www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB23/07-01.htm

Pay keen focus on section 4...

 

ROXRAN, you plagiarized this link from my post. For shame.

Anyway, what is the FULL UNREDACTED TEXT of the section you..."paraphrased". I don't know what it is -- do you?

 

No I didn't, I ignored your link, and found it under the 5th numerical order in the yahoo search for USSID 18. It coincided. Did you read section 4 - collection?

 

SamFisher, you are sad...,quite so, because the President clearly utilized decision-making inferred from the NSA's latest version of the 1993 United States Intelligence Directive 18...He did so to maximize what he can LEGALLY do to keep us safe...

Of which Section 4 counters the oft-cried FISA plea from your fellow neo-demos as baseless and null.

 

so the NSA authored these internal directives?

so is this law which supercedes US Constitution and FISA?

 

It is in keeping. The Constitution is based on the inference. Read section 4 for how the impact of FISA is utilized and balanced with the issue of national security...

 

Here is more that affirms what I am saying:...

http://www.nsa.gov/sigint/index.cfm

This link provides a great illustration as well which helps you understand the connection in the process of the inner workings. The more thou know...the more thou shall yield! I bequeth thy knowledge to thee...

 

again, I don't think anyones questioning the benefits of intelligence collection in general..

so where does it say domestic spying of american citizends without warrant/court order is legal?

 

Read section 4 again, also read section on definitions.

 

I want to stress this part from the site I linked:

NSA's SIGINT mission protects the nation by:

Providing information in the form of SIGINT products and services that enable our government to make critical decisions and operate successfully.
Protecting the rights of U.S. citizens by adhering to the provisions of the 4th amendment to the Constitution.
Using the nation's resources responsibly, according to the best management processes available

...The United States Intelligence Directive 18 is based on these principles. The culmination of adhering Constitutional implication from National Security Directive which Presidents lawfully rely on. President Bush is simply doing his job as justified with the information he has, like it or not...

 

Then why does he feel like he needs to lie about it:

Bush:

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.

 

i wonder what was enron's and mci's mission statements were..

so he is not justified under constitution or law.. but he is under a directive or a mission statement..

you think its as simple as that?

go ahead call ag and tell him you have an idea..

 

The FISA hand is r****ded, so now the court order hand is examined with a microscope...All for the wrong reasons, and you know it. The court order is a whinced formality. I'll have more on that later...but now that I have slapped the dogsh!t out of one hand, the other will be a pleasure...

More on this later.

 

They probably didn't coincide with the constitution and maintaining the best interests of national security...

 

The NSA's United States Intelligence Directive 18 is wholly inferred from the constitution, case precedent, and the law all rolled into one. As United States President, it is completely lawful and compulsory to refer to NSA directive for national security issues...

 

ok so lets just burn courts and all this facade of legality.

the executive can do whatever he wants including breaking the law in order to protect my rights?

hi. inherent contradiction.