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Old 12-21-2005, 05:46 PM
adios adios is offline
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Join Date: Sep 2002
Posts: 2,298
Default Re: President had legal authority to OK taps

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The issue, which Schmidt addresses only obliquely, is whether the President can conduct warrentless searches on U.S. citizens.

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I'm not as up-to-date on this as you are I'm sure. My understanding is that the NYT bruhaha is about eavesdropping on communications between U.S. citizens and foreign contacts. More info on what you are stating would be appreciated.

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The White House position is that the President's status as commander-in-chief during the now continuous "wartime" means that no U.S. citizen has any constitutional protection from encroachment by the Executive branch -- that the President can use one vague phrase in the Constitution to erase all the others.

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You may surprised by this but I think this a legitimate point you make. I brought up the legitimacy of the term "War on Terror" in another recent post and I think alot of people have a problem with this term for the reason you imply. When does "wartime" end in such a war as the "War on Terror?"

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And, of course, there's always the howler: "But we cannot eliminate the need for extraordinary action in the kind of unforeseen circumstances presented by Sept. 11." Bin Laden was at the top of the FBI's most wanted list the day before 9/11. Islamicist terrorists had previously attacked the same target. The intelligence services reported that al Qaeda was "determined" to attack on U.S. soil. A blue-ribbon commission expressly warned, after more than two eyars of investigation, that terrorists attacks on U.S. soil were not only foreseeable but "likely." This is the sort of transparent deception that persuaded tens of millions of Republicans not only to condone and tolerate mass murder in Iraq but also to jettison their own, paid-in-blood rights. The greater threat to Americans is not from without, but from within.

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Again I think the current bruhaha and the problems with specifically defining the "War on Terror" (is it a war really and if so how do we know when it ends?) give rise to the perception that as you write:

The greater threat to Americans is not from without, but from within.
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