AL GORE MOUTHS AGAIN
In a speech before the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy and the Liberty Coalition a liberal group, Al Gore ranted and raved about the Al Qaeda operative surveillance program that President Bush authorized claiming that the President broke the law and was eavesdropping on Americans in a grab for Executive power. Gore used the speech for the Martin Luther King holiday as an avenue to spew a litany of falsehoods against the President and stretch the truth concerning the NSA program and its legality. It would seem that the former Vice President has forgotten the MANY times he and his former boss Bill Clinton used similar programs without court orders to spy on US citizens. The difference was that Clinton Administration programs were not in a time of war and not directed toward people directly contacting a United States enemy. Regardless of which party that a President is from when it comes to national security and the gathering of intelligence from a known enemy the Constitution and several legal statutes give the Commander in Chief the authority to gather information to protect the nation by any means possible. Gore knows this and fully backed it while he was Vice President but now that a Republican President is using limited surveillance to protect the nation from terrorists, Gore has the typical convenient memory lapse and attempts to sound like a Pentecostal preacher to liberal audiences that drink in his diatribes. It is a chilling thought that this man was at one time just one heartbeat from the Presidency.
Ken Taylor
Ken Taylor
posted by The Liberal Lie The Conservative Truth | 6:32 PM
4 Comments:
Bush did break the law, specifically the 1978 FISA. That is why you had Arlen Spector mention the word "impeachment" yesterday as a worst case consequence.
There is no evidence that Clinton conducted warrantless montitoring activities. This has just been a baseless Republican talking point.
FISA allows the government to conduct warrantless monitoring, but it requires the Justice Department (i.e., Executive Branch) to get a warrant within 72 hours from the secret court that oversees national security cases. There were cases when Clinton's Justice Department got retroactive warrants, but they did not break the law as Bush has done.
Why do you believe that Bush did not get the retroactive warrants, and why do you think it is OK for him to break the law?
Rob,
Have you never heard of Aldrich Ames who Clinton wire tapped without court orders. Or the program code-named Echelon which used computers to monitor ALL e-mail and phone calls in the US ?
The following is quoted from the Iowa Voice December 20th, 2005
"During the 1990's under President Clinton, the National Security Agency monitored millions of private phone calls placed by U.S. citizens and citizens of other countries under a super secret program code-named Echelon.
On Friday, the New York Times suggested that the Bush administration has instituted "a major shift in American intelligence-gathering practices" when it "secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without [obtaining] court-approved warrants."
But in fact, the NSA had been monitoring private domestic telephone conversations on a much larger scale throughout the 1990s - all of it done without a court order, let alone a catalyst like the 9/11 attacks.
In February 2000, for instance, CBS "60 Minutes" correspondent Steve Kroft introduced a report on the Clinton-era spy program by noting:
"If you made a phone call today or sent an e-mail to a friend, there's a good chance what you said or wrote was captured and screened by the country's largest intelligence agency. The top-secret Global Surveillance Network is called Echelon, and it's run by the National Security Agency."
NSA computers, said Kroft, "capture virtually every electronic conversation around the world."
Clinton assistant Attorney General Jamie Gorelic tesified before Congress that a President had inherent Constitutional authority to conduct survellience without a court order for national security reasons.
Ken Taylor
Show me a source for Ames supposedly being tapped without a warrant. You are largely relying on NewsMax and are repeating misunderstood and false information about Echelon and supposed warrantless searches. Just read George Tenet's April 2000 testimony before Congress regarding the issue (http://www.cia.gov/cia/public_affairs/speeches/2000/dci_speech_041200.html).
If it were true that Clinton did so, bring him up on charges and impeach him. Oops, I forgot he is not the president.
It is not a defense to say that Clinton did it so it must be OK. Illegal is illegal.
We are going to be in the War on Terror forever because Bush has never articulated an achievable objective that can ever be met. I don't think Bush and every future president should have the ability to spy on Americans without a warrant simply because he/she feels like it.
Read Tenet's testimony, but if you want a shorter response about the Echelon myth, go to: http://thinkprogress.org/2005/12/20/the-echelon-myth/ .
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