And Congress said NO!
On Page A4 of Washington Post
WASHINGTON--The Bush administration requested, and Congress rejected, war-making authority ``in the United States'' in negotiations over the joint resolution passed days after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, according to an opinion article by former Senate majority leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., in Friday's Washington Post.
Daschle's disclosure challenges a central legal argument offered by the White House in defense of the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping of U.S. citizens and permanent residents. It suggests that Congress refused explicitly to grant authority that the Bush administration now asserts is implicit in the resolution.
Daschle's article reveals an important new episode in the resolution's legislative history.
More from WaPo:
The Justice Department acknowledged Thursday, in a letter to Congress, that the president's October 2001 eavesdropping order did not comply with ``the 'procedures' of'' the law that has regulated domestic espionage since 1978. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, established a secret intelligence court and made it a criminal offense to conduct electronic surveillance without a warrant from that court, ``except as authorized by statute.''
There is one other statutory authority for wiretapping, which covers conventional criminal cases. That law describes itself, along with FISA, as ``the exclusive means by which electronic surveillance ... may be conducted.''
Thursday's letter, signed by Assistant Attorney General William Moschella, asserted that Congress implicitly created a new exception to FISA's warrant requirement by authorizing President Bush to use military force in response to the destruction of the World Trade Center and a wing of the Pentagon. The congressional resolution of Sept. 18, 2001, formally titled ``Authorization for the Use of Military Force,'' made no reference to surveillance or to the president's intelligence-gathering powers, and the Bush administration made no public claim of new authority until news accounts disclosed the secret NSA operation. ...
... As drafted, and as finally passed, the resolution authorized the president ``to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations or persons'' who ``planned, authorized, committed or aided'' the Sept. 11 attacks.
``Literally minutes before the Senate cast its vote, the administration sought to add the words 'in the United States and' after 'appropriate force' in the agreed-upon text,'' Daschle wrote. ``This last-minute change would have given the president broad authority to exercise expansive powers not just overseas--where we all understood he wanted authority to act--but right here in the United States, potentially against American citizens. I could see no justification for Congress to accede to this extraordinary request for additional authority. I refused.''
Mr. President, NO means NO!!!
Daschle wrote that Congress also rejected draft language from the White House that would have authorized the use of force to ``deter and pre-empt any future acts of terrorism or aggression against the United States,'' not only against those responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks.
Well it looks like the Bush administration just trampled all over the intent of Congress -- and lied about it. I am shocked, shocked at such behavior.