From Article II, Section 4 of the
U.S. Constitution:
The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.
There have been plenty of things that President Bush had done wrong, in my eyes, since taking office in 2001, courtesy of a 5-4 Supreme Court decision. It is only now with the revelation that the NSA has been domestically spying on orders from our president that there is outrage on both sides of the aisle:
"There is no doubt that this is inappropriate," declared Republican Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He promised hearings early next year.
These hearings, should they actually occur, may be the beginning of the road towards the impeachment of George W. Bush.
"I want to know precisely what they did," said Specter. "How NSA utilized their technical equipment, whose conversations they overheard, how many conversations they overheard, what they did with the material, what purported justification there was."
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said he wanted to know exactly what is going on before deciding whether an investigation is called for. "Theoretically, I obviously wouldn't like it," he said of the program.
Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., a member of the Judiciary Committee, said, "This shocking revelation ought to send a chill down the spine of every American."
Republicans, it seems, are genuinely surprised about this disclosure. Although the revelations of Abu Ghraib had an impact on the discourse of the country, technically, it did not break any of our laws. Sure, it may have violated the Geneva conventions and our moral values, but it was not something that a president can be prosecuted for. Until now, the only possibly impeachable offense that might have been able to ensnare Bush was manipulating the evidence about the true weapons capabilities of Iraq - and even that is difficult to prove.
However, with the revelation of NSA using its powers within the country, there may very well be a case for impeachment here. NSA's mission statement makes no mention of domestic spying:
The National Security Agency (NSA) is the nation's cryptologic organization and as such, coordinates, directs, and performs highly specialized activities to produce foreign intelligence information and protect US information systems. A high-technology organization, NSA is on the frontiers of communications and information technology. NSA is also one of the most important centers of foreign language analysis and research within the US Government
Note that there is nothing within that statement that gives the NSA purview to be a domestic intelligence agency in the mold of Britain's MI-5. The more important part, though, is that this is a clear violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. From Subchapter 1, Section 1802b:
Applications for a court order under this subchapter are authorized if the President has, by written authorization, empowered the Attorney General to approve applications to the court having jurisdiction under section 1803 of this title, and a judge to whom an application is made may, notwithstanding any other law, grant an order, in conformity with section 1805 of this title, approving electronic surveillance of a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power for the purpose of obtaining foreign intelligence information, except that the court shall not have jurisdiction to grant any order approving electronic surveillance directed solely as described in paragraph (1)(A) of subsection (a) of this section unless such surveillance may involve the acquisition of communications of any United States person.
The NYTimes reported the following:
Several senior government officials say that when the special operation began, there were few controls on it and little formal oversight outside the N.S.A. The agency can choose its eavesdropping targets and does not have to seek approval from Justice Department or other Bush administration officials. Some agency officials wanted nothing to do with the program, apparently fearful of participating in an illegal operation, a former senior Bush administration official said. Before the 2004 election, the official said, some N.S.A. personnel worried that the program might come under scrutiny by Congressional or criminal investigators if Senator John Kerry, the Democratic nominee, was elected president.
The emphasized part is where the discrepancy lies. According to FISA, approval must be sought by the Attorney General and approved by a judge. This did not happen; it appears that NSA had complete discretion, on orders from the president, as to what could be done.
Finally, there is the issue of the Bill of Rights, specifically the Fourth Amendment:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
While some of the officials that the Times spoke to stated that the people who were (and, apparently are) allegedly monitored are related to al-Qaeda, it can spiral out of control. At some point, innocent people are going to have their privacy intruded upon unreasonably. Not only does this not fit the NSA's objective goals - the FBI is in charge of domestic intelligence-gathering - but there is a violation of a long-standing law designed to protect the civil liberties of Americans from improper electronic surveillance. It also arguably violates one of our most cherished rights - a right to privacy.
Bill Clinton was impeached over lying about his sexual infidelities in a civil case. George W. Bush authorized a criminal act in his pursuit of the 'war on terror'. That is a high crime, and for that, he should be impeached.
