On Bush: It's Time to Say 'Enough'

[shance]

On Bush: It's Time to Say 'Enough'
by Marty Luster


As if the lies that took us to Iraq were not enough.

As if the knowing use of bad intelligence wasn't enough. As if the ever- shifting justifications for this war were not enough. As if the use of torture by and at the behest of the United States was not enough. As if the disclosure of classified information to retaliate against a critic of the war policy was not enough. As if the shroud of secrecy that binds this administration was not enough. As if the squandering of hundreds of billions of dollars in support of this war at a time when we can't find the money to rebuild one of our great cities, when millions of us go without health care and when the federal government has reneged on its commitment to public education was not enough.

Now, after all that, now we have the disclosure that the president personally ordered and continues to order the interception of telephone and e-mail communications of thousands of U.S. citizens and residents on U.S. soil without search warrants, without court authorization of any sort and without any basis in the constitution or laws of this land.

Now we have had enough.

(snip)

That discomfort is not only warranted by this president's history of deception, distortion and manipulation, it is compounded by the outright obfuscation of his fast-talking secretary of state. When asked on “Meet the Press” on Dec. 18 for the legal basis for the president's actions, Ms. Rice offered, in her usual glib and slick manner, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Based upon that response, one might expect to find in that legislation some clear directive that permits the president to spy upon U.S. citizens in the United States. Surely Attorney General Gonzales, and before him, Attorney General Ashcroft, as well as ace presidential counsel, former Supreme Court nominee Harriet Myers, studied FISA, or at least looked at it, before advising the president that he was free to look at our e-mails and listen to our telephone conversations without the inconvenience of applying for a court order permitting such intrusions. Sadly, it appears that that was not the case.

(snip)

As bad as FISA might be from a civil liberties perspective and as dubious as its constitutionality may be in particular cases, nowhere does FISA permit the interception of any telephonic or electronic communication within the United States without, at the very least, a FISA court authorization.

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