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Old 12-28-2005, 02:30 AM
andyfox andyfox is offline
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Join Date: Sep 2002
Posts: 4,677
Default Re: Do you support Bush?

"Most likely it was that they knew the Dems would play politics with it if they found out the administration was requesting permission to spy. So they hoped they could get away with it."

I don't buy this. The FISA court had been used thousands of times. For example, in 1996, under a Democratic president, the FISA court approved over 800 surveillance and physical search orders. If the Republicans didn't make hay with that against Clinton, why would they have worried about the Dems doing that against Bush? Especially in the wake of 9/11, I don't see how the administration could have thought the Dems could make political hay with this.

The problem with obeying the "spirit" of the law, rather than the "proper technical procedure," it that the spirit is open to each person's personal interpretation of that spirit. According to Attorney General Gonzalez, the president has the inherent right to wiretap without a court order to protect the country. If that's the case, why do we even need a FISA court? I thought the Constitution protected us from warrantless wiretaps, not that it gave the president the inherent right to do it when he decided it was OK.
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