The Politik of Tork

Wow, denied but done anyway!

Here's an interesting article from The Washington Post Here is a little taste for you.

The Bush administration requested, and Congress rejected, war-making authority "in the United States" in negotiations over the joint resolution passed days after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, according to an opinion article by former Senate majority leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) in today's Washington Post.

So, his request for war powers inside the United States was flat out rejected by Congress. That's quite understandable as the military is not a domestic police force. What I want to know is given that, how can he say that his justification for the warrantless wire taps is the Authorization for the Use of Military Force? Doesn't this realization make him saying that nothing but bold face lying?

The Justice Departmans is weighing in on the subject as well and sent a letter to Congress. The following can be found in that article as well.

The Justice Department acknowledged yesterday, in a letter to Congress, that the president's October 2001 eavesdropping order did not comply with "the 'procedures' of" the law that has regulated domestic espionage since 1978. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, established a secret intelligence court and made it a criminal offense to conduct electronic surveillance without a warrant from that court, "except as authorized by statute."

There is a big...I mean huge BUT to this. In the same letter, Assistant Attorney General William Moschella said the following.

Yesterday's letter, signed by Assistant Attorney General William Moschella, asserted that Congress implicitly created an exception to FISA's warrant requirement by authorizing President Bush to use military force in response to the destruction of the World Trade Center and a wing of the Pentagon. The congressional resolution of Sept. 18, 2001, formally titled "Authorization for the Use of Military Force," made no reference to surveillance or to the president's intelligence-gathering powers, and the Bush administration made no public claim of new authority until news accounts disclosed the secret NSA operation.

But Moschella argued yesterday that espionage is "a fundamental incident to the use of military force" and that its absence from the resolution "cannot be read to exclude this long-recognized and essential authority to conduct communications intelligence targeted at the enemy." Such eavesdropping, he wrote, necessarily included conversations in which one party is in the United States.

Honestly, there is no suprise here. Do you really think someone who owes his job to President Bush would say something against him? Only once has a war been fought by the government against citizens of this great nation. It was called the Civil War. Granted, there are no armies moving against each other as the case was then, but still if Mr. Bush continues to use the Authorization for the Use of Military Force as his justification for the wiretapping, doesn't that essentially mean that he has declared war on American citizens whether they be guilty or innocent? I guess it's time to see how good the tap dance is for this one.

posted by Matt @ 12:33 PM