Democratic Planks

Senator Feingold Sums Up Warrantless Wiretaps

...I don’t want to hear again that this Administration has shown it can be trusted. It hasn’t...We held a hearing on the domestic spying program in the Judiciary Committee yesterday, where Attorney General Gonzales was a witness. We expect there will be other hearings. That is a start, but it will take more than just hearings to get the job done.

We know that in part because the President’s Attorney General has already shown a willingness to mislead the Congress.

At the hearing yesterday, I reminded the Attorney General about his testimony during his confirmation hearings in January 2005, when I asked him whether the President had the power to authorize warrantless wiretaps in violation of the criminal law. We didn’t know it then, but the President had authorized the NSA program three years before, when the Attorney General was White House Counsel. At his confirmation hearing, the Attorney General first tried to dismiss my question as “hypothetical.” He then testified that “it’s not the policy or the agenda of this President to authorize actions that would be in contravention of our criminal statutes.”

Right on. He also points out that we ALL agree that wiretaps are absolutely necessary. And they can be done legally with warrants. These warrants can be even be issued retroactively! Without a warrant, wiretaps are illegal. The President has effectively said "I'm the President and there are mean people out there, so I can do whatever I want." Unfortunately for him, that's not true. The Executive branch is subject to the laws passed by congress, and the FISA law passed decades ago is clear: President Bush is breaking the law.

posted at 5:28 PM       Permalink
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