asheris

So now Bush says he's proud of having ordered the NSA to ignore federal laws regarding surveillance, wiretapping, reading people's email, etc.

Yet over the past several years, he has said repeatedly, on record, sometimes angrily, that even in hunting terrorists they always have to get a court order for wiretaps.

Some examples, bold mine:

April 19, 2004: "You see, what that meant is if you got a wire tap by court order -- and, by the way, everything you hear about requires court order, requires there to be permission from a FISA court, for example."

April 20, 2004: "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."

June 9, 2005: "Roving wiretaps allow investigators to follow suspects who frequently change their means of communications. These wiretaps must be approved by a judge, and they have been used for years to catch drug dealers and other criminals. Yet, before the Patriot Act, agents investigating terrorists had to get a separate authorization for each phone they wanted to tap. That means terrorists could elude law enforcement by simply purchasing a new cell phone. The Patriot Act fixed the problem by allowing terrorism investigators to use the same wiretaps that were already being using against drug kingpins and mob bosses."

July 20, 2005: "The judicial branch has a strong oversight role in the application of the Patriot Act. Law enforcement officers must seek a federal judge's permission to wiretap a foreign terrorist's phone, track his calls, or search his property. TOfficers must meet strict standards to use any of the tools we're talking about. And they are fully consistent with the Constitution of the United States." (A White House fact sheet from the same day notes: "...in more than three years there has not been a single verified abuse.")

December 10, 2005: "The Patriot Act is helping America defeat our enemies while safeguarding civil liberties for all our people. The judicial branch has a strong oversight role in the application of the Patriot Act. Under the act, law enforcement officers need a federal judge's permission to wiretap a foreign terrorist's phone or search his property."

Meanwhile, in the East Room press conference yesterday, as reported by MSNBC (bold mine):

President Bush on Monday said disclosure of his domestic eavesdropping program was a "shameful act" and said he will keep using it "for so long as the nation faces the continuing threat of an enemy that wants to kill American citizens."

"As president of the United States and commander in chief I have the constitutional responsibility and the constitutional authority to protect our country," he said in an opening statement at a year-end news conference."
...
"It is legal to do so. I swore to uphold the laws. Legal authority is derived from the Constitution," Bush added.

No, it's not.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978 was passed to deal with surveillance of potential terrorist suspect. It created a secret court (which has only ever turned down FOUR requests for court orders, out of about 15,000) that evaluates evidence and makes a decision within a couple of days. In fact, it even includes provisions for getting a warrant up to 72 hours (3 days) after the fact! (Read the text of FISA.) Note that one section of the law specifically states that in order for the surveillance to be permitted, the requesting agency must show that: "there is no substantial likelihood that the surveillance will acquire the contents of any communication to which a United States person is a party" - Yes, that's right - FISA applies only to foreign nationals. Not to US citizens. Attempts to excuse Bush's actions under FISA are without standing.

In fact, the Supreme Court has spoken on presidential actions involving these legal issues multiple times. Three of the most notable cases:

In 1972 Nixon's Attorney General (Mitchell) interpreted the law to say that Nixon had the right to order wiretaps on pretty much anyone, if any kind of domestic threat was suspected. The case finally made it to the Supreme Court in 1985, where they said NO in a 7-0 decision. (Justices Powell and Rehnquist did not participate in the decision.) MITCHELL v. FORSYTH, 472 U.S. 511 (1985) (Hey, look who was one of the attorneys arguing for former AG Mitchell - Sam Alito, Jr.)

Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer (343 U.S. 579) in which the Supreme Court decided against President Truman's actions/orders (an attempt by him to discover "domestic subversives") by a vote of 6-3. Justice Jackson's concurring opinion nicely lays out the framework for evaluating executive action.

In fact, this was all decided by the Supreme Court in what was commonly known as The Prize Cases, 67 U.S. 635 in 1863. (Yes, eighteen sixty-three.) Yoo and Bybee (for Bush) have tried to twist this decision to read in his favor, when the text of the decisions is solidly against actions such as those he has taken.

Sure, Bush is "protecting the Constitution" - if protecting the Constitution means flushing it down the toilet.

Who have they been "checking on"? Students who request a copy of Mao's The Little Red Book in order to write a paper for a senior-level college class on totalitarian regimes. Gay-rights supporters who oppose "Don't Ask, Don't Tell". Greenpeace. PETA. Civil rights groups. (I'll add links later when I'm not at work.) Anti-war demonstrators. And those are just the ones we know of so far.

And FOR SHAME to the New York Times for sitting on this story for over a year - they had the story BEFORE the 2004 elections, and sat on it. This is the kind of thing voters need to know about when they're deciding on a president.