posted on December 24, 2005 08:22:14 AM new
O anything of nothing first create!
O heavy lightness, serious vanity!
Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms!
Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health !
posted on December 24, 2005 08:58:55 AM newDoesn't mean the President didn't discuss it with other members of Congress has he said he did. Memory loss is going on to a GREAT degree with the dems it appears. LOL
Just like you believed Bush when he said there were tons of WMD in Iraq.
Just like you believed Bush shared the same intelligence that he had about Iraq with the members of Congress.
Well the truth has come out and Bush has lied. This president will do anything to strike fear into the American people.
Absolute faith has been shown, consistently, to breed intolerance. And intolerance, history teaches us, again and again, begets violence.
---------------------------------- The duty of a patriot in this time and place is to ask questions, to demand answers, to understand where our nation is headed and why. If the answers you get do not suit you, or if they frighten you, or if they anger you, it is your duty as a patriot to dissent. Freedom does not begin with blind acceptance and with a flag. Freedom begins when you say 'No.'
posted on December 24, 2005 09:09:07 AM new
In Case You Missed It: President Had Legal Authority To OK Taps
From Chicago Tribune
By John Schmidt
Op-Ed
December 21, 2005
PDF Format
President Bush's post- Sept. 11, 2001, authorization to the National Security Agency to carry out electronic surveillance into private phone calls and e-mails is consistent with court decisions and with the positions of the Justice Department under prior presidents.
The president authorized the NSA program in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks on America. An identifiable group, Al Qaeda, was responsible and believed to be planning future attacks in the United States. Electronic surveillance of communications to or from those who might plausibly be members of or in contact with Al Qaeda was probably the only means of obtaining information about what its members were planning next. ...
In the Supreme Court's 1972 Keith decision ... the court said explicitly that it was not questioning the president's authority to take such action in response to threats from abroad.
Four federal courts of appeal subsequently faced the issue squarely and held that the president has inherent authority to authorize wiretapping for foreign intelligence purposes without judicial warrant.
The passage of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 1978 did not alter the constitutional situation. That law created the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that can authorize surveillance directed at an "agent of a foreign power," which includes a foreign terrorist group. ...
But as the 2002 Court of Review noted, if the president has inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches, "FISA could not encroach on the president's constitutional power."
Every president since FISA's passage has asserted that he retained inherent power to go beyond the act's terms. ...
The administration argues that obtaining intelligence is a necessary and expected component of any military or other use of force to prevent enemy action.
But even if the NSA activity is "electronic surveillance" and the Sept. 11 resolution is not "statutory authorization" within the meaning of FISA, the act still cannot, in the words of the 2002 Court of Review decision, "encroach upon the president's constitutional power."
FISA does not anticipate a post-Sept. 11 situation. What was needed after Sept. 11, according to the president, was surveillance beyond what could be authorized under that kind of individualized case-by-case judgment. It is hard to imagine the Supreme Court second-guessing that presidential judgment.
Should we be afraid of this inherent presidential power? Of course. If surveillance is used only for the purpose of preventing another Sept. 11 type of attack or a similar threat, the harm of interfering with the privacy of people in this country is minimal and the benefit is immense. ...
But we cannot eliminate the need for extraordinary action in the kind of unforeseen circumstances presented by Sept.11. ...
John Schmidt served under President Clinton from 1994 to 1997 as the associate attorney general of the United States. He is now a partner in the Chicago-based law firm of Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw.
posted on December 24, 2005 12:34:08 PM new
I just love how Linda and company are quotting the Chicago Tribune now, when before they claimed it was slanted as a LIBERAL newspaper.
Can't these people make up there mind? Is it a liberal paper or isn't. I guess it depends on the dope they have been smoking that morning.
Absolute faith has been shown, consistently, to breed intolerance. And intolerance, history teaches us, again and again, begets violence.
---------------------------------- The duty of a patriot in this time and place is to ask questions, to demand answers, to understand where our nation is headed and why. If the answers you get do not suit you, or if they frighten you, or if they anger you, it is your duty as a patriot to dissent. Freedom does not begin with blind acceptance and with a flag. Freedom begins when you say 'No.'
