Secondly, there are such things as roving wiretaps. Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution.
That's a quote from a
speechby George W. Bush back on April 20, 2004. Many a lefty blogger has trumpeted this quote in the time since the Bush Administration's illegal warrantless wiretapping program was first made public. I first
pointed the statement outon December 21 of last year, and it has just bugged the hell out of me ever since.
Why won't anyone in the media with access to the President ask him why he blatantly lied about domestic spying two-and-a-half years after he had started the warrantless NSA eavesdropping program? (And, as an aside, what's the pathology that makes a person just volunteer such a deliberate falsehood without having been pressed on the issue?)
It's a smoking gun, these 5 sentences. Those lines are Bush's sinister version of "I did not have sexual relations with that woman". It is our belief here at Merlot Democrats that a president's lying about unlawful spying on American citizens should actually be punished by the body politic, unlike lying about a blowjob, which should be punished by the little lady.
A smoking gun, and yet I don't believe anyone has asked the President about the statement. Today on Meet the Press, Tim Russert did ask Arlen Specter about the 4-20-04 Bush speech, and Specter put forth the only potential (albeit dubious) spin the Republicans could possibly put on it. That is, Bush's statement could just barely, technically be squared with the truth of his actions (in the Clinton-style witness's-lips-to-deponent's-genitals fashion) if he only meant that he thought wiretaps in fact required court orders for domestic-to-domestic communications, and not any foreign communications.
After Russert played the April 20, 2004 Bush clip for Specter and asked whether the statement was "misleading," Specter responded:
Well, it depends on what the President had in mind. I think it's a fair question for the President. If the President was talking about what goes on domestically in the United States, I think it is accurate. If he had in mind the entire program, including what goes on when one of the callers or recipients is overseas, it's incorrect.
According to Specter's suggested spin, the President was not misleading if he was referring only to domestic-to-domestic communication, because (WE ASSUME) the government still gets those pesky, cumbersome "warrants" for calls with points of origin and completion within the United States.
So, to give Bush the benefit of any doubt, I looked up and read the entire 4-20-04 speech, to see if there was any way he could have been talking solely about "what goes on domestically". And he was not. The president was not only talking about "what goes on domestically." The context of the above-cited paragraph of the speech was a discussion of the re-authorization of the Patriot Act.
Title II of that Act- "Enhanced Surveillance Procedures" - includes section 206 - "ROVING SURVEILLANCE AUTHORITY UNDER THE FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SURVEILLANCE ACT OF 1978".
Yoda might say "significant, this section is," because (a) those wiretaps Bush spoke of in the 2004 speech were, as the first sentence notes, those "roving wiretaps" which are the very subject of section 206; and (b) the roving wiretap law mentioned and revised by this section of the Patriot Act controls those wiretaps that fall under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, which relates to ... FOREIGN ... intelligence ... surveillance.
So re-read the quote at the top of this post now that it's clear the "roving wiretaps" you think of "when you think Patriot Act" include wiretaps of domestic-to-foreign communications. (Also read another line from the speech armed with that information: "So with court order, law enforcement officials can now use what's called roving wiretaps, which will prevent a terrorist from switching cell phones in order to get a message out to one of his buddies.")
But that speech was a long time ago. What would the Bush Administration say about the need for court orders for domestic-to-foreign eavesdropping now that the illegal NSA warrantless domestic spying program has come to light? This White House website pagewas update Friday, Feb. 3, 2006 (2 days ago), and it says:
The Patriot Act Helps Law Enforcement Fight Terrorism While Safeguarding Civil Liberties For All Americans. The judicial branch has a strong oversight role in the application of the Patriot Act. Law enforcement officers must seek a federal judge's permission to wiretap a foreign terrorist's phone, track his calls, or search his property. These strict standards are fully consistent with the Constitution. Congress also oversees the application of the Patriot Act, and in more than three years there has not been a single verified abuse.
Really? Can't these guys even competently retro-fit their own website to conform to the official line?
Something else Sen. Specter said when Tim Russert asked him if Bush's speech was "misleading" was, "That'd be a good question to pose to the President, Tim, at his next news conference."
I couldn't agree more. But who will step up and do it?
---
(Another sample from that same speech/discussion of April 20, 2004:
"We've done a better job of coordinating FEMA, for example, which is -- means Federal Emergency Management Association. But it's now part of the Homeland Security Department. And we better coordinate with state and local authorities. So not only are we doing -- coordinating activities when it comes to fighting terrorists, but we're doing so when it comes to responding to emergencies, as well.")
(cross-posted at my site)