George Bush: Master Spy

[barb162]

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0602,hentoff,71587,6.html


George Bush: Master Spy
Unilateral president exposed in his ignorance of Constitution he's sworn to protect

by Nat Hentoff
January 6th, 2006 4:53 PM



The pursuit of terrorism does not authorize the president to make up new laws. Thomas G. Donlan , "Unwarranted Executive Power," Barron's, page 1, December 26
William Kristol, usually a reasonable conservative—staunchly defending the president's authorization of the National Security Agency's warrantless spying on telephone calls and e-mails into and out of the United States—declared in the January 2 Weekly Standard, of which he is the editor:

"Was the president to ignore the obvious incapacity of any court to judge surveillance decisions involving the sweeping of massive numbers of cell phone and e-mails by high-speed computers . . . the threat of imminent new attacks?"

Kristol ignored the fact—as the president continually has—that the law creating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court permits the NSA to conduct its massive searches without first going to the FISA court in an emergency. The NSA then has 72 hours to go to the secret FISA court and get the warrant. Moreover, as John Riley reported in the best single analysis of this action by the master-spy president ( Newsday, "Eavesdropping Tests Legal Limits," December 26), "Even longer periods are permitted in wartime."
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