I was feeling a bit ranty tonight and tacked the following onto my signature on a
moveon petition. For those who like to read the ending first:
In closing (before the form letter from moveon starts) let me paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld for irony's sake: As you know, you have to go to not-technically-war with the laws you have, not the laws you want.
(the ranty bit is below)
I'm not a lawyer, but I paid some attention during basic social studies - what the administration is doing is a crime. The separation of powers in this country is an absolutely essential part of what makes our particular form of democracy a good one. To make the claim that the administration can, to assist in the execution of a military action not officially declared as a war by Congress, use commander-in-chief powers to contravene existing valid US Law (fairly recent law at that) is absolutely ludicrous. Much attention has been paid recently to the problem of judges who legislate from the bench, but I feel pretty emphatically that legislating from the oval office is not any better.
The specific laws being broken aren't exactly the problem even, merely the fact that they are being clearly and unrepentantly broken. Bill Clinton was nearly impeached over a lie, because telling a lie in the context he did was illegal, not because of the content of the lie. I would hope to see the current leadership in the executive branch be held to at least the same standard of scrutiny over illegally spying on many (hundreds? thousands? hundreds of thousands?) US citizens as the previous over a lie about a poor decision which directly affected no more than a handful of people.
It is the responsibility of the Congress and the Attorney General in this county to draft the laws and see to it that they are followed. To avoid prosecuting a violation of the Constitution for what appear to be purely political reasons would be absolutely disgraceful, and I'd like to think that any such inaction would end up as a sad page in our future history books - hopefully in a fully anotated manner such that the names of all who failed to live up to the obligations of their jobs be permanently shamed.
In closing (before the form letter from moveon starts) let me paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld for irony's sake: As you know, you have to go to not-technically-war with the laws you have, not the laws you want.