I wonder which supporters of George W Bush have the shame to read this New York Times editorial on its merits.
We can’t think of a president who has gone to the American people more often than George W. Bush has to ask them to forget about things like democracy, judicial process and the balance of powers ¢â¬â and just trust him. We also can’t think of a president who has deserved that trust less.
This has been a central flaw of Mr. Bush’s presidency for a long time. But last week produced a flood of evidence that vividly drove home the point.
DOMESTIC SPYING After 9/11, Mr. Bush authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on the conversations and e-mail of Americans and others in the United States without obtaining a warrant or allowing Congress or the courts to review the operation. Lawmakers from both parties have raised considerable doubt about the legality of this program, but Attorney General Alberto Gonzales made it clear last Monday at a Senate hearing that Mr. Bush hasn’t the slightest intention of changing it.
According to Mr. Gonzales, the administration can be relied upon to police itself and hold the line between national security and civil liberties on its own. Set aside the rather huge problem that our democracy doesn’t work that way. It’s not clear that this administration knows where the line is, much less that it is capable of defending it. Mr. Gonzales’s own dedication to the truth is in considerable doubt. In sworn testimony at his confirmation hearing last year, he dismissed as “hypothetical” a question about whether he believed the president had the authority to conduct warrantless surveillance. In fact, Mr. Gonzales knew Mr. Bush was doing just that, and had signed off on it as White House counsel.
THE PRISON CAMPS It has been nearly two years since the Abu Ghraib scandal illuminated the violence, illegal detentions and other abuses at United States military prison camps. There have been Congressional hearings, court rulings imposing normal judicial procedures on the camps, and a law requiring prisoners to be treated humanely. Yet nothing has changed. Mr. Bush also made it clear that he intends to follow the new law on the treatment of prisoners when his internal moral compass tells him it is the right thing to do.
On Thursday, Tim Golden of The Times reported that United States military authorities had taken to tying up and force-feeding the prisoners who had gone on hunger strikes by the dozens at Guant¡namo Bay to protest being held without any semblance of justice. The article said administration officials were concerned that if a prisoner died, it could renew international criticism of Gitmo. They should be concerned. This is not some minor embarrassment. It is a lingering outrage that has undermined American credibility around the world.
According to numerous news reports, the majority of the Gitmo detainees are neither members of Al Qaeda nor fighters captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan. The National Journal reported last week that many were handed over to the American forces for bounties by Pakistani and Afghan warlords. Others were just swept up. The military has charged only 10 prisoners with terrorism. Hearings for the rest were not held for three years and then were mostly sham proceedings.
And yet the administration continues to claim that it can be trusted to run these prisons fairly, to decide in secret and on the president’s whim who is to be jailed without charges, and to insist that Gitmo is filled with dangerous terrorists.
THE WAR IN IRAQ One of Mr. Bush’s biggest “trust me” moments was when he told Americans that the United States had to invade Iraq because it possessed dangerous weapons and posed an immediate threat to America. The White House has blocked a Congressional investigation into whether it exaggerated the intelligence on Iraq, and continues to insist that the decision to invade was based on the consensus of American intelligence agencies.
But the next edition of the journal Foreign Affairs includes an article by the man in charge of intelligence on Iraq until last year, Paul Pillar, who said the administration cherry-picked intelligence to support a decision to invade that had already been made. He said Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney made it clear what results they wanted and heeded only the analysts who produced them. Incredibly, Mr. Pillar said, the president never asked for an assessment on the consequences of invading Iraq until a year after the invasion. He said the intelligence community did that analysis on its own and forecast a deeply divided society ripe for civil war.
When the administration did finally ask for an intelligence assessment, Mr. Pillar led the effort, which concluded in August 2004 that Iraq was on the brink of disaster. Officials then leaked his authorship to the columnist Robert Novak and to The Washington Times. The idea was that Mr. Pillar was not to be trusted because he dissented from the party line. Somehow, this sounds like a story we have heard before.
“Attorney General Alberto Gonzales made it clear last Monday at a Senate hearing that Mr. Bush hasn’t the slightest intention of changing it.”
In fact, what the AG made it clar that there was not the slightest doubt that the program was legal.
The rest is just a bunch of tired old canards, Nicholas.
Rob, He did not. If James Madison were alive today he would kick your arse into orbit for that comment and your cheerleading and support for destroying his carefully balanced system of checks and balances. Some more wisdom from the great man himself;
“War is in fact the true nurse of executive aggrandizement. In war, a physical force is to be created; and it is the executive will, which is to direct it. In war, the public treasuries are to be unlocked; and it is the executive hand which is to dispense them. In war, the honors and emoluments of office are to be multiplied; and it is the executive patronage under which they are to be enjoyed; and it is the executive brow they are to encircle. The strongest passions and most dangerous weaknesses of the human breast; ambition, avarice, vanity, the honorable or venal love of fame, are all in conspiracy against the desire and duty of peace.”
Bush fails it. He is no republican.
“Rob, He did not.”
wow..good argument!
An anti-Bush editorial in the NYT is just what the diehard Bush supporters expect. They love it, it confirms their prejudices and gets their blood boiling. It doesn’t change anybody’s mind.
It just encourages ‘the base’ – its what they want to see in a president – A commander in chief that kicks terrorist ass and doesn’t care what weak kneed liberals think about it.
The administration is playing the national security card and it will do so until the elections.
I predict the Republicans will take even more seats from the Democrats.
“Attorney General Alberto Gonzales … made it clear … that the program was legal…”
Is this the same chap who described the Geneva Convention Articles on interrogation and torture as “quaint” ?
If so, it is hardly surprising if he regarded anything the Prez did as legal.
There seem to be two views on Bush. One is that he is a complete idiot, who can more or less be kept on song by the management of Rove, and leaving the actual detail to Cheney and Rummy. The other is that he will lie about anything, convincing himself of the veracity of what he’s saying at the time (eg the New Orleans fiasco). Most of us haven’t considered that he’s probably both.
Bill may well be right, but it will take a bigger vote-rigging effort next time.
Don, you’re right – a combination of “moral clarity” and stupidity is a necessary and sufficient requirement for self-deception. Very different to, say, Nixon. He had a great capacity for deceiving others but, until he buckled under his paranoia, was too clever to deceive himself.
IHBT.
Michael, and the depth of detail I was replying to when making the comment of “He did not” was ……
We tried placing all power into the Executive arm of government in the past. The problem was that people didnt like it much. Absolute executive power got bad names like tyrant, despot, king etc. There was also a bunch of rebellions so we could get to forms of democracy that included Montesquieu seperation of powers.
I don’t care which party’s bum you lick, but I consider it a civic responsibility to not only understand the difference between the executive, legislative and judicial but also how liberty is dependent upon them being balanced so that no arm has absolute power.
It is the height of civic irresponsibility to blindly and constantly agree with the executive based on which faction they are from.
For all people’s jeering about President Bush, he makes a convincing case for the legality of the interception program right here .
Rob,
Can you explain why it’s important that the President do his surveillance – even if one line of the phone is in a foreign country – without the judicial oversight that we are told can be expeditiously arranged should he be prepared to submit himself to it?
Because normal intelligence collection (i.e. outside the US) is what the foreign intelligence agencies do. It’s what they are there for. It’s perfectly legal. It’s only when they operate within the US that they require judicial oversight. Rather similar to Australia, where ASIO, AFP, etc. have to get warrants to conduct domestic wiretaps. In the US warrants are granted by a special counrt (FISA), but in Austlralia by the Attorney General or a judge.
Hence Bush’s point that “Federal courts have consistently ruled that a President has authority under the Constitution to conduct foreign intelligence surveillance against our enemies”.
Bush is no dummy. He is wilfully ignorant. He is proud of the fact that he doesn’t read books or newspapers. He has surrounded himself with ambitious unscrupulous advisers who tell him what they want him to hear.
He is a combination of a privileged upbringing and a late life conversion to born again Christianity. A combination of naivety and certainty.
He doesn’t think he is doing anything wrong. He really believes in what he says. Unlike Nixon.
The American people won’t turn against the Republicans until there is evidence that the administration spied on political enemies -a la Nixon.
As long as they can present themselves as the protectors of the people they can get away with almost anything.
Rob,
The President reserves the right of executive interception without judicial supervision on the grounds that “one end of the communication must be outside the United States.” In other words, when one end of the communication is within the US.
Given that we are told warrants can be obtained expeditiously under judicial oversight, do you think it would be a good idea if the President submitted himself to judicial supervision or was required to do so where one end of the line was in the home country?
Or would that be too weak kneed or even perhaps a bit too namby pamby a way to protect our way of life?
Nicholas, no I don’t. If a warrant is not legally required, nor FISA involvement, I can’s see any reason why this process should be subject to judicial oversight any more than any other standard intelligence gathering function.
Do you think it should be legally required?
Or do you think it’s OK that anyone in the US can be spied on by the executive without judicial supervision if the other end of the phone line is outside the country?
Yes I do, with an important proviso: the Amercian in question must be reasonably believed to be doing something seriously bad. As Bush said, if you’re an American talking to Al Qaida we want to know about it. What’s to object to in that?
The objection is that they can (and are) spy on US Citizens who are talking to anybody but the Terrorist-of-the-Day.
An excellent explanation of the program and the safeguards associated with it is in this address to the US National Press Club by the Deputy DNI. It’s a bit long and rambly but I think it makes clear that the scenario Tiny Tyrant envisages does not and could not arise.
Cameron, I apologise for my snarky comment, but I have to admit to not really being across the issue in question (legality of the phone taps) and it was disappointing not to see you argue the point based on what Gonzales had actually said, either he did say it was legal or he didn’t, so I would have thought it would be simple to make the case.
“It is the height of civic irresponsibility to blindly and constantly agree with the executive based on which faction they are from.”
Just as it is to blindly and constantly DISagree with the executive, especially for the MSM, and this is something the NYT is regularly accused of. If Robs take on Gonzales’s beliefs is correct then it would certainly seem to be an example of this irresponsibility (clearly trying to imply that Gonzales was happy for ILLEGAL taps to continue when they knew he considers them to be legal) – that’s why I thought it important to know if Robs comment was correct.
And surely this is also important when looking at the “merits” of this editorial?
Rob and Michael,
Rob if what you are saying is the WHOLE truth then the following NYT comment is just hot air.
Did Mr Gonzales say this or is that just NYT making things up? Did he make it clear that he was defending the wiretaps in the way you have Rob, or did he say that the administration would police itself and draw the right line. If he said the latter, I guess that it makes me nervous, and I don’t think your defence of him really succeeds.
But I’m happy to be corrected.
The Bush Administration’s arguments for the legality of their secret warrantless wiretapping regime are legal nonsense. Even lots of Republicans are saying so. Take Senator Arlen Specter, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee Not exactly a raving leftie):
Anyone who professes to be impressed by the Bush Administration’s legal arguments would be well advised to read this comprehensive and devastating submission by 14 US constitutional law professors and former government lawyers.
Nicholas, Gonzales’ views can be found here.
On a quick read it does not address the specific issue you raise.
Ken, it is the AG who is the formal legal adviser to the President, and he gets his support from the US Department of Justice. The 14 professors may disagree with AG/DoJ advice, but what of it? It’s not their job to proved formal legal advice to the Administration.
Also, Ken, from what I understand, the program does not involve wiretapping.
Rob
“Wiretapping” in my understanding/useage refers to communications interception techniques generally, including purely electronic means that don’t involve connection to a telephone cable or similar. This is a nitpick, and irrelevant to the argument given the scope of FISA.
On your substantive point, I accept that Bush has advice from DOJ/A-G asserting that the Administration’s wiretapping regime is legal. But this says nothing about whether that assertion is legally tenable. We are entitled (and, if we’re wise and public-spirited citizens, obliged) to examine the merits of the respective arguments. I’ve read Gonzales’ speech (and a range of other detailed summaries of the DOJ position/arguments). The submission of the 14 law professors linked above deals comprehensively with each of the legal points made by Gonzales. Have you actually bothered to read it? Or is this another one of those arguments I recall from previous discussions with you on this blog, where the facts seem to be entirely superfluous to your opinion?
I don’t deny that some people, even some lawyers, argue that Bush’s warrantless tapping activities are legal. But you started this thread by adopting Gonzales’ claim that there is “not the slightest doubt that the program was legal” and that the “rest is just a bunch of tired old canards”. Even if you don’t accept what I regard as the quite compelling legal logic of the 14 professors’ submission to the contrary, you must surely at least now concede that your/Gonzales’ claim of “not the slightest doubt” is a gross overstatement. The question of legality is highly debatable at the very least.
True, ‘not the slightest doubt’ was rhetorical overreach.
And yes, I’ve read both the 14 professors and Gonzales but unfortunately have no means of knowing which represents the better interpretation of the Constitution. They both seemed to make sense, but cancelled each other out. I noted, though, that the 14 talk of ‘limitless’ and ‘indefinite’ warrantless wiretapping, which does not square with the description of the program that GEN Hayden gave in his speech.
We are probably all at a disadvantage in not knowing exactly what the program is – Hayden was very careful to avoid discussing what he called operational details. However, I assume that the DoJ lawyers and the AG himself do not suffer from that disadvantage, and have been appropriately briefed. He also said that all the classified details had been exposed in closed discussions with Congress .
To my mind, this strengthens the case for the DoJ position.
They mean ‘limitless’ in the sense that any limits that may exist are self-imposed and self-supervised by the Executive government, and not subject to any external checks and balances of the sort the US Constitution is generally regarded as requiring.
“To my mind, this strengthens the case for the DoJ position. ”
How? If operational details have been revealed to Congress, that presumably includes disclosure to people including the assorted Republicans like Senator Specter who still reckon the regime is illegal. How does the fact of revealing operational details to Congress say anything at all about legality?
You have to be on the right committes to get classified briefings, as I understand it. And my point was rather that the DoJ lawyers had the advantage of knowing exactly what they were talking about.
Shorter Rob: The President does not have to answer to his employers – the citizens of the US.
Y’know Rob, Dubya could sodomise a fluffy white kitten on TV in primetime and, along with the other few lollards leftyou’d still be gamely trying to frame it as another bold move in the war on terror.
That was humour, right? Not my strong point.
Rob,
You said this.
“Yes I do, with an important proviso: the Amercian in question must be reasonably believed to be doing something seriously bad. As Bush said, if you’re an American talking to Al Qaida we want to know about it. What’s to object to in that?”
We have a long tradition of trying to make sure that the people who make the decisions about who’s doing somehting ‘seriously bad’ are not political stooges and apparatchiks. That’s why we invented the traditions of the judicial branch of government – independence, tenure that kind of stuff.
You don’t seem to want to defend our way of life (which has judicial officers making important decisions like this). You want to destroy our way of life and have any old stooge of the left or right deciding whether the person who is being surveilled is “reasonably believed to be doing something seriously bad”.
If that’s right, then you’re not a republican or a democrat or a conservative or a liberal.
Rob.
No. Yes.
Nicholas, I can’t agree with (well, I would, wouldn’t I?)
From what I’ve read, the person that makes the decision to prosecute elements of this program is the President of the United States. He is a directly elected official, with certain powers conferred on him by the Constitution. It is entirely appropriate and within the spirt of representative democracy that it is he, not a judicial officer, who makes the decision about an operation designed to safeguard the United States, whose security is, of course, his ultimate responsibility.
We operate in a similar way. Out AG can approve a warrant against a person involved in terrorism. Here again the decision is made by an elected representative of the people. If the people don’t like his decision, or the Prez’s, they vote him (or his government) out.
Personally, I strongly believe that all significant decsisions by the executive arm of government should be made by elected officals. That’s why I think our system is superior to the Americans’, where equivalents to our Ministers are not elected, they are appointed.
That said, if I were an American, I would be quite confortable with a senior professional (head of agency) like Hayden making a judgement about a certain course of action – strongly informed, as he pointed out in his speech, by his own legal people – and a strong culture of organisational ethics, and the President signing off on it if he agreed.
Finally, repeating myself I daresay, I strongly disagree with your contention that our way of life relies on judicial officers making key policy decisions. It is elected officals who should make those decisions because they are accountable to the people.
It’s not a policy decision.
It’s a judicial decision.
It’s about a particular person’s liberty and rights. It calls for due process.
What decisions would you be unhappy with elected officials or the head of the executive making Rob and why?
I disagree again. There is a legal issue intertwined with a policy decision; that does not make it a judicial decision. The AG’s advice to the President is that it is within his contitutional powers to approve these measures. It is his policy call as to whether, in the particular case, he approves or disapproves a recommendation from one of the agencies of the executive arm of government.
That’s the way governments work. The constitution confers powers on elected officals, and appointed officials execute those powers as directed. It happens in Australian ministries all the time. If there’s a legal issue involved in preparing the policy advice, officials get legal advice from the appropriate body, and prepare their recommendations acccordingly.
Sorry, I do not mean to sound snarky.
Michael, it was disappointing not to see you argue the point based on what Gonzales had actually said
It has been debunked constantly by people more qualified than me on the issue. But if you want to go back to primary sources why the Executive (President) making laws (the domain of the Legislative) is a bad thing for liberty and good government, Federalist No.47 has an answer;
The US Constitution allows a small area where the Executive can intersect with the Legislative, and that is the veto. The Executive cannot make laws up (like an executive order which allows him to bypass FISA’s requirements). It is just stupid, as FISA gives the executive every possible advantage anyway, including retroactive wiretaps. They would trade away what makes America strong for what?
Just as it is to blindly and constantly DISagree with the executive, especially for the MSM, and this is something the NYT is regularly accused of.
I am most interested in good government. Poor governing adds inefficiencies and burdens to liberty, society, economy and culture. Liberty and prosperity are impossoble when a people are trapped under poor government or a tyrannical arm of government.
Charles Harpur believed that the biggest drag on a people was the avarice and greed of a poor political system. It is a social burden on the moral and ethical fabric of the people. A good recent example is the AWB, it appears to have been encouraged, and is now being excused or explained away. Poor government hurts more than just farmers who got payed less for their wheat than Saddam Hussein.
Anyone who is interesed in good government should be permanently suspicious of the executive and political parties. Especially when an individual and party hold power across two arms of government. Australian parliament embeds the executive in the legislative, which means we have to be doubly vigilant over the executive’s behaviour.
Reading the partisan rubbish spouted by the New York Times would be a waste of effort.
Shorter EP: “Na,na,na I can’t hear you”.
I’d just like the RWDBs to think for a moment if the Supreme Court in 2000 had behaved in a less blatantly partisan way, and 9/11 happened on Gore’s watch.
Don’t you think that, apart from blaming 9/11l on Gore (yes, yes, I know – there are plenty on the left trying to blame it on Bush), you’d be screaming for impeachment if Gore had publicly taken the attitude, with each signing of a Bill, tnat “the law is whatever I interpret it to be”, and if said interpretation resulted in arbitrary detainment, torture and wiretapping?
As I’ve said before, terrorists come and go (there’s been plenty before al Quaeda) but Big Brother is forever.
The Supreme Court didn’t behave in a partisan way in 2000. It ruled according to the Constitution, despite enormous partisan pressure from Gore supporters.
As for the law, it’s up to the courts to interpret that — and they interpreted it in such a way as to allow Bush’s wiretaps, and those of Clinton before him. So I doubt they’d rule any differently if it was Gore instead of Bush or Clinton.
I thought guys like you were supposed to be tough minded EP? A bit suspicious of our fallen state.
Where are all the liberals and conservatives that’s what I want to know.
“As for the law, it’s up to the courts to interpret that —
Conservative governments have good intentions, Nick, so it’s alright …
“We can’t think of a president who has gone to the American people more often than George W. Bush has to ask them to forget about things like democracy, judicial process and the balance of powers —
The Clinton Administration believed that the President’s inherent powers under the Constitution included the ability to perform warrantless searches. Wiretaps are a form of search.
Link for the above quote.
EP
I hadn’t been aware of the Clinton situation. Two important things arise from the above quote. First, it establishes, as I said above, that there has NOT been any court decision on the legality of warrantless wiretaps, either under Clinton or Bush. It is merely executive government assertion of power in both cases. Thus your statement above that “it’s up to the courts to interpret that —
Ken, However both are equally clearly in breach of FISA.
According to Clinton he did not do warrantless wiretapping;