Alberto Says, Bush “Has Got the Power” [View All]

[kerrygoddess]

Alberto Says, Bush “Has Got the Power”
January 20th, 2006

The Bush administration — via mouthpiece, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales — sent a 42-page white paper to Congress yesterday outlining their legal justifications that Bush “has got the power” under the Constitution to order warrantless eavesdropping on U.S. citizens. They’re trying to pass the buck on this one, but no one really seems to be buying. Even some leading conservatives are calling for extensive hearings on NSA surveillance.

The WaPo reports, all in the same breath, that the Justice Department’s report is “the administration’s most detailed legal defense to date of its surveillance program” and “the administration has offered many of the same arguments orally in defending the program since its existence was disclosed last month.” Glad to see they got this all down on paper…

For example, Gonzales asserted that the president’s power to protect the country with surveillance was reaffirmed when Congress passed a resolution in October 2001 that authorized the president to use military force against al Qaeda and to deter future terrorist attacks.

“The program was designed to be protective of civil liberties,” Steven G. Bradbury, acting assistant attorney general for the department’s Office of Legal Counsel, said yesterday in a briefing with reporters. “It’s not a blank check that says the president can do whatever he wants.” Bradbury said the president has a special role — and duty — to take whatever military action is needed to counter attacks on the United States, and those actions necessarily include intercepting telecommunications and e-mail.

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