Bush Addresses Uproar Over Spying
The political uproar over President Bush's secret domestic spying program escalated yesterday as the president denied overstepping his constitutional bounds while congressional critics from both parties stepped up their attack and vowed a full investigation...
"This is a different era, a different war," the president said at a year-end news conference in the East Room. "People are changing phone numbers and phone calls, and they're moving quick. And we've got to be able to detect and prevent. I keep saying that, but this . . . requires quick action."
But Democrats and some key Republicans on Capitol Hill were unconvinced, and they questioned whether Bush has violated a law intended to prevent the government from spying on its citizens without court approval.
George Will has an interesting Op-Ed on the issue - Why Didn't He Tell Congress
In a related story, the FBI has been investigating anti-war, environmental groups, etc. The FBI has no information on these groups acting unlawfully, but they are being monitored none the less. Welcome to Stalinism.
FBI Papers Show Terror Inquiries Into PETA; Other Groups Tracked
FBI counterterrorism investigators are monitoring domestic U.S. advocacy groups engaged in antiwar, environmental, civil rights and other causes, the American Civil Liberties Union charged yesterday as it released new FBI records that it said detail the extent of the activity.
The documents, disclosed as part of a lawsuit that challenges FBI treatment of groups that planned demonstrations at last year's political conventions, show the bureau has opened a preliminary terrorism investigation into People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the well-known animal rights group based in Norfolk.
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"In a little-remembered debate from 1994, the Clinton administration argued that the president has "inherent authority" to order physical searches — including break-ins at the homes of U.S. citizens — for foreign intelligence purposes without any warrant or permission from any outside body. Even after the administration ultimately agreed with Congress's decision to place the authority to pre-approve such searches in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court, President Clinton still maintained that he had sufficient authority to order such searches on his own.
"The Department of Justice believes, and the case law supports, that the president has inherent authority to conduct warrantless physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes," Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee on July 14, 1994, "and that the President may, as has been done, delegate this authority to the Attorney General."
"It is important to understand," Gorelick continued, "that the rules and methodology for criminal searches are inconsistent with the collection of foreign intelligence and would unduly frustrate the president in carrying out his foreign intelligence responsibilities."
Executive Order 12333, signed by Ronald Reagan in 1981, provides for such warrantless searches directed against "a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power."
Clinton, too, was on the right side of this one.
http://nationalreview.com/york/york200512200946.asp
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