who disagree with the * admin. and the house and senate. Or at least they used to... :(
Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration (“Against Truth-Tellers,” Civil Watch, 1/12/06)
“Compared to Spygate, Watergate was a kindergarten picnic. The Bush administration’s lies, felonies, and illegalities have revealed it to be a criminal administration with a police state mentality and police state methods. Now Bush and his attorney general have gone with the final step and declared Bush to be above the law. Bush aggressively mimics Hitler’s claim that defense of the realm entitles him to ignore the rule of the law…”
“These possible reasons for bypassing the law and the court need to be fully investigated and debated. No administration in my lifetime has given so many strong reasons to oppose and condemn it as has the Bush administration. Nixon was driven from office because of a minor burglary of no consequence in itself. Clinton was impeached because he did not want the embarrassment of publicly acknowledging that he engaged in adulterous sex acts in the Oval Office. In contrast, Bush has deceived the public and Congress in order to invade Iraq, illegally detained Americans, illegally tortured detainees, and illegally spied on Americans. Bush has upheld neither the Constitution nor the law of the land.”------------------------
John Dean, former counsel in the Nixon administration, (ACLU National Town Hall on NSA Spying, 2/20/06)
“In a parallel situation today, I would tell this President that he has a very serious problem. I’m not sure if there’s a cancer yet, I’m not sure if it’s metastasizing, but the diagnosis is not healthy. He has made such a radical reading of his powers, not unlike Nixon. And those operating on his behalf have pursued that policy that it could well end up where we did with the Nixon White House.”
“There’s no question in my mind that this President has already committed one or more technically impeachable offenses.”-------------------------
Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS), Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee (“Senate Chairman Splits with Bush on Spy Program,” New York Times, 2/18/06)
"I think it should come before the FISA court, but I don't know how it works," Mr. Roberts said. "You don't want to have a situation where you have capability that doesn't work well with the FISA court, in terms of speed and agility and hot pursuit. So we have to solve that problem."
"I think it's the function and the oversight responsibility of the committee," he said, adding, "That might sound strange coming from me."
“It's the Republicans on the committee, my staff and myself, who have been really — I don't want to say pressuring, but trying to come up with a reasonable compromise that will settle this issue. It was our activity that brought them along to this point, plus the possibility of an investigation."
"We would be much more in concert with the Congress and everybody else and the FISA court judges" if the court oversaw the program."-------------------------
Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME), member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (“Senate Chairman Splits with Bush on Spy Program,” New York Times, 2/18/06)
"I think we do have to have judicial review," she said, adding, "Whether it's the FISA approach or not I think remains in question, but it can't go on in perpetuity, and it can't be unfettered warrantless surveillance."-------------------------
Robert Levy, senior fellow in constitutional studies at the CATO Institute, a conservative think tank (Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on NSA and domestic spying, 2/28/06)
“What about the FISA statute – doesn’t the NSA program violate its expressed terms? My answer to that question is: Yes. The text is unambiguous. A person is guilty of offense if he intentionally engages in electronic surveillance except as authorized by statute.”
“Do the president’s inherent wartime powers allow him to ignore FISA? My answer is: No… warrantless wiretapping of Americans inside the United States who may have nothing to do with Al Qaida does not qualify as incidental wartime authority.”
“When FISA forbids electronic surveillance without a court order, except for 15 days, while the AUMF permits necessary and appropriate force, it seems to me quite simply bizarre to argue that electronic surveillance is thereby authorized without a warrant.”-------------------------
Bruce Fein, former general counsel to the FCC in the Reagan administration (Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on NSA and domestic spying, 2/28/06)
“The theory invoked by the president to justify eavesdropping by the NSA in contradiction to FISA would equally justify mail-openings, burglaries, torture, or internment camps – all in the name of gathering foreign intelligence. Unless rebuked, it will lie around like a loaded weapon, ready to be used by an incumbent who claims an urgent need.”
“The burden of persuasion ought to be on the president to explain why FISA is unworkable, not on us to explain why a secret program we know nothing about is unnecessary.”-------------------------
Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM), Chairwoman of the House Intelligence Subcommittee on Technical and Tactical Intelligence (Republican speaks Up, Leading Others to Challenge Wiretaps,” New York Times, 2/14/06)
"I think the argument that somehow, in passing the use-of-force resolution, that that was authorizing the president and the administration free rein to do whatever they wanted to do, so long as they tied it to the war on terror, was a bit of a stretch. And I don’t think that’s what most members of Congress felt they were doing.”-------------------------
Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), former member of Senate Subcommittee on Oversight Government Management (“Republican Speaks Up, Leading Other to Challenge Wiretaps,” New York Times, 2/14/06)
“There is considerable concern about the administration’s just citing the president’s inherent authority or the authorization to go to war with Iraq as grounds for conducting this program. It’s a stretch.”-------------------------
Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM), Chairwoman of the House Intelligence Subcommittee on Technical and Tactical Intelligence (“Republican Who Oversees N.S.A. Calls for Wiretap Inquiry,” New York Times, 2/08/06)
The lawmaker…said she had ‘serious concerns’ about the surveillance program. By withholding information about its operations from lawmakers, she said, the administration has deepened her apprehension about whom the agency is monitoring and why.
Ms. Wilson said… that she considered the limited Congressional briefings to be ‘increasingly untenable’ because they left most lawmakers knowing little about the program. She said the House Intelligence Committee needed to conduct a ‘painstaking’ review, including not only classified briefings but also access to internal documents and staff interviews with N.S.A. aides and intelligence officials.
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Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), member of the Judiciary Committee and the Armed Services Committee (Senate hearing on NSA and Domestic Spying, 2/06/06)
“The FISA statute – if you look at the legislative language, they made a conscious decision back in 1978 to resolve this two-lane debate. There’s two lanes you can go down as commander in chief. You can act with the Congress and you can have inherent authority as commander in chief…”
“All I’m saying is that the inherent authority argument, in its application, to me, seems to have no boundaries when it comes to executives decisions in a time of war. It deals the Congress out, it deals the courts out. And…there is a better way.”-------------------------
John Samples, director of the Center for Representative Government at the CATO Institute, a libertarian think tank (“Senate target: Bush’s war powers,” Christian Science Monitor, 2/01/06)
“The presidency, whoever is in it, has real advantages in the struggle, but we may see that
the Congress finally believes that the Bush administration has gone too far.”-------------------------
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Senate Co-Chair of the National Security Caucus (FOX News, 1/22/06)
Asked if the president has the legal authority to engage in warrantless wiretaps, McCain replied:
“You know, I don’t think so, but why not come to Congress? We can sort this all out. … I think they will get that authority, whatever is reasonable and needed, and increased abilities to monitor communications are clearly in order.”-------------------------
Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation (“Conservatives and Liberals Want Action on Surveillance Controversy,” The Nation, 1/18/06)
“If the law is not reformed, ordinary Americans’ personal information could be swept into all-encompassing federal databases encroaching upon every aspect of their private lives.”-------------------------
Bob Barr, former Republican member of Congress and Chairman of Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances (U.S. Newswire, 1/17/06)
“When the Patriot Act was passed shortly after 9-11, the federal government was granted expanded access to Americans’ private information. However, federal law still clearly states that intelligence agents must have a court order to conduct electronic surveillance of Americans on these shores. Yet the federal government overstepped the protections of the Constitution and the plain language of FISA to eavesdrop on Americans’ private communication without any judicial checks and without proof that they are involved in terrorism.”-------------------------
David Keene, Chairman of the American Conservative Union (U.S. Newswire, 1/17/06)
“The need to reform surveillance laws and practices adopted since 9/11 is more apparent now than ever. No one would deny the government the power it needs to protect us all, but when that power poses a threat to the basic rights that make our nation unique, its exercise must be carefully monitored by Congress and the courts. This is not a partisan issue, it is an issue of safeguarding the fundamental freedoms of all Americans so that future administrations do not interpret our laws in ways that post constitutional concerns.”-------------------------
Steve Chapman, a columnist who has identified himself as “a small-government, pro-life libertarian,” (Chicago Tribune, 12/25/05)
“The disclosure that the president authorized secret and probably illegal monitoring of communications between people in the United States and people overseas again raised the question: Why?”
“The government easily could have gotten search warrants to conduct electronic surveillance of anyone with the slightest possible connection to terrorists. The court that handles such requests hardly ever refuses. But Bush bridles at the notion that the president should ever have to ask permission of anyone.”-------------------------
Alan Gottlieb, founder, Second Amendment Foundation (U.S. Newswire, 1/17/06)
“If the law is not reformed, ordinary Americans’ personal information could be swept into all-encompassing federal databases encroaching upon every aspect of their private lives. This is of particular concern to gun owners, whose rights guaranteed under the Second Amendment are currently being infringed upon under the Patriot Act’s controversial record search provisions."
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Rep. C.L. “Butch” Otter, (R- ID), Assistant Majority Whip in House of Representatives (Associated Press, 12/23/05)
“The Founders envisioned a nation where people’s privacy was respected and the government’s business was open… These actions turn that vision on its head. If the government is willing to bend the rules on this issue, how are we supposed to believe it won’t abuse the powers granted by the Patriot Act?”
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Norm Ornstein, resident scholar of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a conservative Washington think tank (Diane Rehm Show, 12/19/05)
“I think if we’re going to be intellectually honest here, this really is the kind of think that Alexander Hamilton was referring to when impeachment was discussed.”
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Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), member of the Judiciary Committee and the Armed Services Committee (Face the Nation, 12/18/05)
“If he has the authority to go around the FISA court, which is a court to accommodate the law of the war of terror, the FISA Act created a court set up by the chief justice of the United States to allow a rapid response to requests for surveillance activity in the war on terror. I don’t know of any legal basis to go around that. There may be some, but I’m not aware of it. And here is the concern I have. We can’t become an outcome-based democracy. Even in a time of war, you have to follow the process, because that’s what a democracy is all about: a process.”
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Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee (“President ordered domestic spying program,” Associated Press, 12/17/05)
“There is no doubt that this is inappropriate,” said Sen. Arlen Specter. … He said there would be hearings early next year and that they would have “a very, very high priority.”
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Robert Levy, Constitutional Scholar and Federalist Society Board Member (http://www.fed-soc.org/pdf/domesticsurveillance.pdf)
“The text of FISA … is unambiguous: ‘A person is guilty of an offense if he intentionally engages in electronic surveillance … except as authorized by statue.’… I know of no court case that has denied there is a reasonable expectation of privacy by U.S. citizens and permanent resident aliens in the types of wire communications that are reportedly monitored by the NSA’s electronic surveillance program.”
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