Please discuss here. It’s ongoing, and Jonathan Turley, the well-known constitutional law expert from Geo Wash University, is speaking … and Zesty Grapher has a diary up on this hearing …
Update [2006-1-20 13:40:56 by susanhu]: Robert Wexler is tearing Bush a new one … I love that guy … and here’s the ACLU’s newest missive, “ACLU Calls Warrantless NSA Domestic Spying Program Illegal,
Says President Ignored Rule of Law; Demands Special Counsel — FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE — Friday, January 20, 2006.” Text below the fold … KEY ELEMENTS: “While Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-PA) is expected to hold an oversight hearing on February 6, no other congressional committee has scheduled similar hearings. The ACLU urged all other relevant committees to conduct extensive and public oversight hearings on the NSA program.” (Let’s all write our members of Congress and INSIST on hearings) … and the ACLU testimony today …
Update [2006-1-20 13:54:50 by susanhu]: ONE MORE: The Center for American Progress is holding a hearing NOW on CSPAN1 .. about Abramoff and on and on …
Says President Ignored Rule of Law; Demands Special Counsel
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, January 20, 2006
WASHINGTON – At a briefing held by House Democrats today, the American Civil Liberties Union criticized the National Security Agency’s warrantless wiretap program directed by President Bush as an illegal operation that violates both the letter and spirit of the law. The briefing was held because the Republican House leadership has yet to schedule any public oversight hearings on the unlawful domestic spying program.
“The executive power of our country is not an imperial power,” said Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. “Ours is a nation founded upon, and guided by, the rule of law. The president has demonstrated a dangerous disregard for our Constitution and our laws with his authorization for this illegal program. His continued approval of this warrantless spying places all of our freedoms at risk.”
Fredrickson appeared before a panel of Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee. Her appearance follows the filing of a lawsuit by the ACLU on January 17 against the NSA on behalf of a group of prominent journalists, nonprofits, terrorism experts and community advocates. The suit argues that the president’s program violates the First and Fourth Amendment and the separation of powers.
The ACLU has also called on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to appoint a special counsel to begin an independent investigation of the program, saying that an outside special counsel is needed to hold those who authorized the illegal wiretap program accountable. Using the Freedom of Information Act, the ACLU has also filed requests for records about the unlawful program.
The briefing follows an increased push by the White House and the Justice Department to try to justify the program. On Wednesday, the Justice Department issued a 42-page whitepaper asserting a legal basis for the operation. Fredrickson noted that the whitepaper failed to rebut the ACLU’s legal analysis in its call for a special counsel. The Justice Department’s letter also fell far short of rebutting the analyses of the non-partisan Congressional Research Service that concluded that the president overstepped his authority when he approved the program and that he failed to properly brief Congress, as required by law. Numerous legal scholars and academics have drawn similar conclusions.
While Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-PA) is expected to hold an oversight hearing on February 6, no other congressional committee has scheduled similar hearings. The ACLU urged all other relevant committees to conduct extensive and public oversight hearings on the NSA program.
“This briefing comes at an appropriate time, just days after Martin Luther King Day,” Fredrickson added. “Dr. King was perhaps the most famous victim of the out-of-control ‘national security’ surveillance conducted by the government in the ’50s and ’60s. Supposedly to fight communism, the FBI illegally wiretapped, spied on and eventually tried to blackmail one of this nation’s greatest citizens. National security must not be used again as a rationale to violate our founding principles. Congress must act to restore the rule of law.”
The ACLU’s testimony can be read at:
TEXT
To read more about the ACLU’s concerns with the warrantless NSA spying program, go to:
TEXT
*****
ACLU Atty: Bush hopes to win this in court of public opinion, not in any legal court where he’d lose ….
Oh, is this almost over?
If you just tuned in, you’ve missed some damned good stuff. Try to catch a rebroadcast.
Dammit .. i hope you all will call me on the phone if this happens again … I’ll jump out of bed to cover this … I overslept this morning.
(Send me an e-mail to get my phone #)
Damn…I emailed you this morning with something else and meant to include the Conyers hearing on Cspan. Just another blonde moment…lol! Thanks for doing this Susan. I watched while getting ready for work and there was some good shit. Fine said we are in a grave constitutional crisis and Bush has broken the law.
Dem, MD Chris Van Hollen is good — he just said that it’s no wonder that Bush doesn’t veto any legislation ….
By MD, I meant Maryland — he is SHARP!
Bruce Fein (Deputy AG – Reagan) says: ” . . .power trying to overreach itself unless it’s checked.This is having your liberties encroached upon by inches rather than miles and then you lose them on the installment plan, rather than as a balloon payment.”
I loved watching Chris Von Hollen. In the first rounds he acted as if looking for good arguments Bush could use. Then that comment about WHY Bush never vetoes any bill is priceless!!
“As long as I am saying I am doing it to fight terrorism,” it’s cool — Bush thinks …
just like Nixon
BRUCE FEIN — former asst atty general, REAGAN ADMINISTRATION!
We need a transcript of this. Who might put one up?
Transcript? Well, it won’t be Bush’s shills at CNN. According to Conyers diary at Kos yesterday, CNN was going to cover it. I didn’t see anything there this morning. Imagine that!
cspan.org is unavailable to me.
anyone else having this problem?
I too am getting the error response…page cannot be found.
Yeppers!
Just tried again. It is back up on Conyers is on the front page.
.org. yes
no page yet
I got it to work for me but don’t know how to set it up as a link. http://www.c-span.org/watch/cspan_rm.asp?Cat=TV&Code=CS
thanks!
Turley: “Principle of constitutional avoidance.” If I decide there is a conflict constitutionally, then I can do whatever I want.
Rep. Wexler (D-FL) – Congress won’t do its job and protect our constitution. All we have is the court of public opinion.
Most Americans think this will never affect me. Who was in that Quaker church?
Richard Hersh (Truth Project): Nurse, pharmacist, student, grandmother, web designer, attorney, etc. Other Quakers. None of us had traveled outside the country. None had – to my knowledge – made any phone calls outside the country. Just people interested in educating our children.
(Truth Project carries out counter-recruitment at high schools.)
Wexler: So your group has views counter to Bush’s agenda, not any ties to Al Qaeda or terrorists. It was spied on because it had different views.
Hersh: We aren’t harmless. We have been labeled a “credible threat.” The truth is always a credible threat to illegitimate and unjust power.
the Defense Department has rewritten their own rules on domestic spying and the sky is the limit for them. In fact spying on any of us who are anti Iraq war would fall under their new rewritten guidelines as legal to spy on, and we must be watched because our actions undermine the Iraq war.
Okay…now I am really pissed! There is absolutely NO coverage on any of the Yahoo news sources. Nothing. Lots of Bush, Rove and GOP freaken articles though. Rove gets coverage of a speech he is giving at the RNC winter gathering with Ken Melhmen? We are truely fucked people. if the media won’t cover what the dems try to do, no wonder so few of them wants to speak out anymore. It’s pointlesss if you cannot get the message to the American public.
just pathetic. I didn’t witness Rove. Mehlmen laid out GOP ownership of Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan, and this Bush……….Abraham Lincoln? I guess they forgot about the ole switcharoo that the parties have done! This is hard for me to admit but in truth I had a set of Great Grandparents who were only Democrats out of stubborn habit and I mean stubborn habit (I guess they were determined that one day they would take their party back)…..they were Dixiecrats and they weren’t nice people and I wasn’t allowed to visit and was even told that my Great Grandmother was too demented for children to visit. She did tell me that Brazil nuts were called nigger toes and I was just a wee child and really thought that was what they were called! Mehlmen said we also had to produce some campaign finance reform and close some loopholes so Billionaires like George Soros couldn’t buy elections like Soros attempted to do in 2004. The whole of what I watched was just so much bullshit I can’t even believe it is newsworthy………it was just more spin and cheerleading!
Fredrickson was Great!! Becuase she echoed Gore’s calls for Speical Prsecutors, I called and became and ACLU member and added a few extra dollars.
WOW! Look what happens when you forget spell check. My apologies.
mine. When I’m really pissed I just can’t wait to hit the post button.
There is no doubt that Bushco is thumbing their nose at congress and the rule of law. If they get away with it then we can fold up our chairs and go home. Game over and we have a police state. Further, there will be no need for elections, or any other excercise of democracy. We will all be safe from terrorists, won’t we?