by TChris

The Bush administration has rewritten the nation's first principles. No man is above the law, except the president. Ours is a government of men (gathered in the White House) and not of laws. Separation of powers gives way to a concentration of power in an omnipotent executive. The president's power must be unchecked, even if the president is unbalanced.

The federal legislature enacted laws that prohibit the executive branch from electronically eavesdropping on private communications without the approval of the judicial branch. The law authorizes the president to apply to a special court for easily-obtained permission to intercept telephone calls of persons suspected of supporting terrorism or of working on behalf of a foreign government. Nothing in the Constitution gives the president greater power than that bestowed by Congress to listen to private conversations, and the Fourth Amendment requires the executive branch to obtain a warrant before it does so.

Like a rebellious child who continues to stick out his tongue after being told to behave, President Bush today acknowledged that he has authorized wiretaps and insisted that he will continue to do everything in his power to protect Americans. While the president contended that he is acting "under our laws and Constitution," his understanding of the law -- detention without trial or counsel, torture, secret renditions to foreign prisons, all deemed appropriate exercises of presidential power -- is untrustworthy.

A president who lies about a private sexual encounter is impeached. A president who defies the law and, when exposed, arrogantly proclaims his right to do so, will never stand trial.

Update: Webmaster Mike Ditto and I spent 8 hours implementing the new design today. We're not quite done. Hopefully, it will be finished tomorrow night. It's looking really good, but I don't want to republish the 13,000 entries and 180,000 comments until it's close to perfect. We expect that to be tomorrow night.

Update: The upgrade to MT 3.2 is mostly done. There are some kinks in the search results, comment preview layout and a few other pages, which we are working on. But you can go ahead and comment.

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Webmaster Mike Ditto is about to upgrade TalkLeft to MT 3.2. This means comments will not be available for an hour or so.

Sometime tonight, we will be converting to our first new design since June, 2002, with a new graphic by Monk. Every template of TalkLeft needs to be changed over, which Mike is handling.

I'll update here when comments are back and again when the new design is implemented.

Here is the entire FISA Act. Section 1802 covers electronic surveillance under the Act without a court order. You may have to check the GAO database to make sure none have been updated recently. I will be posting another version from Lexis later, but since readers can't access it without paying, I thought this publicly available version would be helpful to get you started.

Section 1811 of the act pertaining to surveillance during wartime states:

Notwithstanding any other law, the President, through the Attorney General, may authorize electronic surveillance without a court order under this subchapter to acquire foreign intelligence information for a period not to exceed fifteen calendar days following a declaration of war by the Congress.

Section 1805 of the Act covers emergency situations where a court order cannot be obtained in advance. Such surveillance can only last 72 hours before an Order is applied for.

President Bush today admitted he ordered National Security wiretaps without a warrant more than 30 times since 2001. He says he has the power to do it. You can watch his statement here.

From the Washington Post:

Bush said that he authorized the program "using constitutional authority vested in me as commander-in-chief." He argued that the program is consistent with U.S. law and the Constitution, and used "to intercept the international communications of people with known links to al Qaeda and related terrorist organizations."

You had to know it was too good to be true. Don't praise John McCain's torture amendment too soon. The Levin-Graham Amendment passed along with it, and it amounts to a license to use coercive techniques, particularly on detainees at Guantanamo:

House and Senate negotiators agreed Friday to a measure that would enable the government to keep prisoners at Guantánamo Bay indefinitely on the basis of evidence obtained by coercive interrogations.

The provision, which has been a subject of extensive bargaining with the Bush administration, could allow evidence that would not be permitted in civilian courts to be admissable in deciding whether to hold detainees at the American military prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. In recent days, the Congressional negotiators quietly eliminated an explicit ban on the use of such material in an earlier version of the legislation.

Human Rights Watch explains:

Alex White Plume and his family are members of the Lakota Nation who live on the Pine Ridge Reservation. The DEA sued to stop them from growing industrial hemp. The White Plumes planted and grew the hemp for three seasons, and then the DEA cut it down and took it.

The case reached the 8th Circuit where oral arguments were held this week.

During the oral arguments it became clear that Judge Kermit Bye and Judge Arlen Beam were focused on two issues: (1) the irrationality of allowing the exempt parts of the plant to be imported into the U.S. but not allowing industrial hemp to be grown in the U.S. and (2) the lack of any rational permitting process by the DEA.

While the Government's case was made, Judge Beam commented, "It seems asinine to me that they can bring in the Canadian stuff and use it but can't grow it." Beam also suggested that it did not make sense that Congress would try to make the economy of Native American tribes more enhanced by casino gambling but not allow industrial hemp cultivation.

Update: Rep. Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-MS), leading Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee (press release):

'This Bill is so Ridiculous that, According to the Republicans, Santa Claus Himself Would be a Criminal for Trekking from The North Pole to Deliver Holiday Gifts Without a Visa.'

The bill passed the House today, by a vote of 239-to-182. See Sensenbrenner gloat.

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Original Post

The National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights wrote to Congress yesterday asking it to defeat H.R. 4437, the Border Protection, Anti-Terrorism and Illegal Immigration Control Act sponsored by Rep. James Sensenbrenner. I detailed the worst provisions of the bill here. Here's NIRR's webpage on the bill. From today's letter, received by e-mail:

Was Texas prosecutor Ronnie Earle unlawfully present during the second grand jury's deliberations on Tom DeLay? DeLay's defense team thinks so - it has subpoenaed grand jurors to a Dec. 27 hearing on its motion to dismiss for prosecutorial misconduct:

State law prohibits prosecutors from attending grand jury deliberations, but the defense alleges that Earle unlawfully participated in the second grand jury's deliberations and tried to force those grand jurors to indict DeLay. Earle denies the allegations. Grand jury testimony is secret and Earle does not have to release transcripts unless he's ordered to by a court, so the defense has asked Senior Judge Pat Priest to allow the grand jurors to testify.

DeLay's lawyer, Dick Deguerin said he has other evidence and the grand jurors' testimony doesn't make or break the case, but it's very significant.

[Hat tip to Tom at Opinions You Should Have]

Raw Story reports that Fitzgerald is focused on the July 11, 2003 e-mail Karl Rove sent Stephen Hadley about Rove's call with Matthew Cooper. Did Karl Rove hide or purposely conceal the Stephen Hadley e-mail after Attorney General Gonzales ordered the production of e-mails and after the February 6 deadline for the White House to turn over subpoenaed contacts with reporters?

Rove's alleged failure to disclose his conversations with Cooper and Novak and the fact that he didn't turn over the Hadley email on two separate occasions is the reason he's been in Fitzgerald's crosshairs and may end up being indicted, people close to the investigation said.

It's also the reason Fitzgerald had grown suspicious at the time that Rove may have hid or destroyed evidence related to his role in the leak, they said, adding that Fitzgerald may have already been aware of the existence of the email, perhaps even obtaining a copy from a witness or another White House official, and waited to see if Rove would cite it or his conversations with Cooper in his grand jury testimony.

Raw Story connects the e-mail to Luskin's reported insistence that his tip from Time Reporter Viveca Novak occurred in February rather than in March or May as she testified:

The Senate has rejected the Patriot Act renewal legislation by a 52 to 47 vote. Frist said no to a three month extension.[Update: Roll Call vote is here.]

Huge defeat for Bush. But, they can still go back to the bargaining table and Frist might call for another vote before December 31 when the sunsetted provisions expire.

Cagey Frist: When he saw the bill was going down, he switched sides, so under the rules he can ask for another vote.

If your Senator voted against the Patriot Act, call them and thank them. Let them know you appreciate their vote for your freedom and privacy rights. And ask them to stand firm and reject a new compromise.

Intrepid reporter Murray Waas is back with a new article in the National Journal on why Robert Novak called Karl Rove on July 9, 2003: It was to discuss Frances Fragos Townsend, "a former senior attorney in the Clinton administration's Justice Department whom President Bush had recently named to be his deputy national security adviser for combating terrorism."

In a nutsell, Waas' latest goes like this: Cheney and Libby objected to Frances Townsend because she might not approve harsh interrogation techniques or secret renditions. The President wanted Townsend for the job. Libby embarked on a campaign to discredit her. Rove embarked on a campaign to support her. Rove and Novak spoke about her and it was at the end of the call when Valerie Plame came up. Novak then wrote his trash piece on Townsend on July 10, and his Plame expose on July 14.

One-third of my way through the article, I thought this is Team Rove's latest attempt to blame Libby to clear Rove. [ Update: On a second read-through, I'm not sure about this. There's enough later in the article that hurts Rove to suggest this isn't coming from Team Rove.]

Update: TV Newser reports Novak has been signed by Fox to be a contributor. Think Progress commenters called it.

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Romanesko has a copy of CNN's Statement advising that Bob Novak is leaving the network.

"After 25 years of serving as a CNN commentator and program host, our colleague Bob Novak's tenure on the network will come to a close (effective 12/31). Through the years, Bob has offered incisive analysis for much of CNN's programming, including Crossfire, The Capital Gang, Inside Politics, Evans and Novak, The Novak Zone, and Novak, Hunt and Shields. Bob has also been a valued contributor to CNN's political coverage. We appreciate his many contributions and wish him well in future endeavors," said Jon Klein, president of CNN/U.S.

Media Matters delivered 5,000 signatures on a petition last week calling for his termination. They argued: