America... Spying on Americans

Debra_Law wrote:

Ticomaya wrote:
parados wrote:
The argument that Congress is interfering in CIC powers is pretty weak.

The court dealt with that in Youngstown

Quote:
There are indications that the Constitution did not contemplate that the title Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy will constitute him also Commander in Chief of the country, its industries and its inhabitants. ,' whatever they are. While Congress cannot deprive the President of the command of the army and navy, only Congress can provide him an army or navy to command.

Congress can make regulations for the military. The president is not free to ignore those regulations.

Youngstown did not deal with warrantless searches for purposes of gathering foreign intelligence for national defense. Every appellate court that has done so has upheld the authority of the President in that regard.

Your attempt to distinquish the underlying facts in Youngstown from President Bush's domestic spying program is without merit. ...

Yes, I understand you believe that to be the case. It will be interesting to see how the Youngstown argument plays out before the SC with regard to the current subject matter, but I don't think it's application will go as broadly as you are convinced it will.

Quote:

It has been noted several times and just again by Parados that the Supreme Court (in the 1972 Keith case) recommended that Congress protect the rights of our citizens by establishing special probable cause standards for a special court to issue warrants to conduct electronic surveillence for national security and intelligence gathering purposes. Congress did exactly what the Court recommended when it enacted FISA.

And I believe I've mentioned the Keith opinion several times to point out how the Supreme Court has set foreign intelligence surveillance separate and apart from other surveillance.

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So, you agree that there must be some method for determining which kind of information is, in fact, being surveiled, Tico?

What would you suggest that method be? Keep Constitutionally mandated Civil Rights protection in mind when you answer, thanks.

Cycloptichorn

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parados wrote:

Finn,
The check on congress is the courts and the constitution. Congress can only pass laws as long as the laws are constitutional. Freeduck stated that when she pointed out the president would win the battle on a law banning recess appointments in the court.

In this case the Congress has the EXPRESS ability to make regulation regarding the military. The President is not given the power to reject those regulations. Even in waging war, the President is under restrictions from laws and treaties. As Tico likes to point out so many times, the President is free to ignore those or any other laws. But in so doing he puts himself above the law and at a very real risk of impeachment.

And the Executive branch can only take actions as long as they are permitted by the Constitution. And the Judiciary branch can only take actions as long as they are permitted by the Constitution.

It is a given that the Constitution trumps the powers of any and all body of government.

The concept of the Founders was a triumvirate of equal power holding each other in check.

Each branch of government, at any given time, executes on powers it believes it has been granted by the Constitution. A test of the validity of that belief may or may not be in the offing.

There is no one branch that is immune from the influence of the other two.

Why knucklehead Joe Nation has pointed out that an amendment to the Constitution is not dependent on a populist vote is beyond me.

The governing concept is that the Judiciary is not permitted to be the absolute arbiter of all issues in dispute. The history of the US is replete with amendments to the Constitution. None have happened in our life times and therefore it is possible that some of us may believe none ever will, but this is a flawed perception.

The very nature of politics is power. It is foolish (and impossible) to expect that the the three branches of government will not test the boundaries of their Constitutional powers.

It is ridiculous to contend that the Executive branch should go to the Legislative branch, hat in hand, for a determination on what the Executive branch might do.

The real issue here is not whether or not the Executive branch has violated a prescription of the Legislative branch, it is how the Judicial branch will perceive the Executive branch's action in terms of the Constitution; empowerment.

Bottom line is that pronouncements of legal violation by the Executive branch are premature.

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Who said the executive branch had to go to the legislature or the courts to decide what it could do? As Tico said, the President is free to do whatever in the hell he wants. The courts and the legislature are free to respond. Congress could well impeach a President before it ever gets to the courts if they feel the violation is egregious. The courts could decide a President's action is illegal but they have no power to enforce their ruling if the legislature sides with the President.

The courts are bound by the constitution. The constitution is by the people. The courts are seen as the last refuge of the people for an overreaching Executive or legislative branch. The people have the ability to overrule the courts with an amendment.

A law exists. The president has circumvented that law. Either the law is unconstitutional or the President violated it. There aren't really any other choices.

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parados wrote:

Who said the executive branch had to go to the legislature or the courts to decide what it could do? As Tico said, the President is free to do whatever in the hell he wants. The courts and the legislature are free to respond. Congress could well impeach a President before it ever gets to the courts if they feel the violation is egregious. The courts could decide a President's action is illegal but they have no power to enforce their ruling if the legislature sides with the President.

The courts are bound by the constitution. The constitution is by the people. The courts are seen as the last refuge of the people for an overreaching Executive or legislative branch. The people have the ability to overrule the courts with an amendment.

A law exists. The president has circumvented that law. Either the law is unconstitutional or the President violated it. There aren't really any other choices.

We're not far afield, and yet so far removed.

The three branches push as hard as they can for power.

You and your compadres would impose a standard of care on the Executive Branch that rises far beyond what the Constitution calls for.

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Quote:

It is ridiculous to contend that the Executive branch should go to the Legislative branch, hat in hand, for a determination on what the Executive branch might do.

The real issue here is not whether or not the Executive branch has violated a prescription of the Legislative branch, it is how the Judicial branch will perceive the Executive branch's action in terms of the Constitution; empowerment.

Bottom line is that pronouncements of legal violation by the Executive branch are premature.

It isn't just a matter of constitutional empowerment; it's a matter of violating standing laws.

Yaknow what never should have happened? The president never should have signed FISA into law way back in the day. Because once that happened, FISA became a legal boundary on the Executive Branch which the Executive Branch agreed to. Thus, it is sitting and standing law, and the president most certainly can not decide to break it because he/they feel the executive branch 'should' have more power. Or, more accurately, he/they can; but they cannot expect to avoid the consequences of their actions.

We have ways of changing the rules; constitutional conventions, laws passed by congress. There are also Executive orders; as was pointed out earlier, they allow the president to take action; but not to avoid the consequences of that action.

There are two consequences; political and legal. The president may dodge the legal consequences, but given the problems with the issue - the president directly lied about wiretaps in 2004, the Justice dept' attempted to get the laws changed in 2002 and 2003(implying that they knew it was illegal), and there were undoubtedly some people listened in on who probably shouldn't have been - the political consequences could be dire, if not for Bush himself, then for the '06 Congress.

Cycloptichorn

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The esteemed Finn D'Abuzz wrote:

Quote:

Why knucklehead Joe Nation has pointed out that an amendment to the Constitution is not dependent on a populist vote is beyond me.

The governing concept is that the Judiciary is not permitted to be the absolute arbiter of all issues in dispute. The history of the US is replete with amendments to the Constitution. None have happened in our life times and therefore it is possible that some of us may believe none ever will, but this is a flawed perception.

Perhaps I thought his knowledge of the history and operation of the US Constitution to be incomplete. Perhaps I was right.

Where to begin, oh, The governing concept is that the Judiciary is the absolute arbiter of all issues in dispute. That's why we call them Judges. They settle issues in dispute. Think Gore v. Bush. If they overturn a law or set of laws, Congress can go back and rewrite, but the Courts decide if the law as written or re-written is Constitutional. Congress, for example, and I apologize if this is knuckleheaded, but it has been proposed, cannot pass a law saying that the Court has no jurisdiction over it.

Mr. D'Abuzz apparently is so young to have missed the insertion of the XXVII Amendment to the Constitution in 1992. (Twenty seventh for those who cannot read Roman Numerals)
I am so old as to have been around for Amendments XXII through XXVII and was engaged in the failed efforts to pass two others, the Equal Rights Amendment and the Amendment to give the Dist. of Columbia representation in the US House of Representatives. How the second one failed to pass is still beyond me.

Here's a link to your Constitutional Amendments,:"Knucklehead Knowledge for the People"

Oh and by the by, you are wrong about this as well:

Quote:

You and your compadres would impose a standard of care on the Executive Branch that rises far beyond what the Constitution calls for.

The current administration believes the Congress is a mere inconvenience to their execution of power. They are wrong. They are Nixonian in that, he who once stated that "if a President does something, it's not illegal." I would love to see George W. Bush making a sad, yet brave, wave goodbye from the top steps of his departing helicopter.

Joe(with Dick Cheney already seated inside the craft)Nation

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Finn d'Abuzz wrote:

parados wrote:
Who said the executive branch had to go to the legislature or the courts to decide what it could do? As Tico said, the President is free to do whatever in the hell he wants. The courts and the legislature are free to respond. Congress could well impeach a President before it ever gets to the courts if they feel the violation is egregious. The courts could decide a President's action is illegal but they have no power to enforce their ruling if the legislature sides with the President.

The courts are bound by the constitution. The constitution is by the people. The courts are seen as the last refuge of the people for an overreaching Executive or legislative branch. The people have the ability to overrule the courts with an amendment.

A law exists. The president has circumvented that law. Either the law is unconstitutional or the President violated it. There aren't really any other choices.

We're not far afield, and yet so far removed.

The three branches push as hard as they can for power.

You and your compadres would impose a standard of care on the Executive Branch that rises far beyond what the Constitution calls for.

In what way am I imposing a standard beyond what the constitution calls for? If any branch tries to overplay its role it is a problem for the country. Since all branches do it, it is the responsibility of the people to say when it is too much. Your argument seems to be we should ignore those times.

When the President ignores existing law, it IS one of those times. You might think he has the right to do it but that doesn't change facts. The law exists. The President didn't follow it. We may interpret the law a little differently but it is no different than when Clinton didn't tell the whole truth. Some interpreted perjury laws as not telling the truth was a violation. There is certainly room for interpretation in the case of FISA too. But there can be little question of Bush following the law to the letter. Even Tico's argument is that the law is unconstitutional rather than arguing that Bush followed it.

Is your standard that the President is free to ignore laws?

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ACLU Releases Government Photos
ACLU Releases Government Photos
WXIA TV, Atlanta
Friday 27 January 2006

A government photo shows Caitlin Childs protesting.
(Photo: WXIA 11Alive.com)

The ACLU of Georgia released copies of government files on Wednesday that illustrate the extent to which the FBI, the DeKalb County Division of Homeland Security and other government agencies have gone to compile information on Georgians suspected of being threats simply for expressing controversial opinions.

Two documents relating to anti-war and anti-government protests, and a vegan rally, prove the agencies have been "spying" on Georgia residents unconstitutionally, the ACLU said.

For example, more than two dozen government surveillance photographs show 22-year-old Caitlin Childs of Atlanta, a strict vegetarian, and other vegans picketing against meat eating, in December 2003. They staged their protest outside a HoneyBaked Ham store on Buford Highway in DeKalb County.

An undercover DeKalb County Homeland Security detective was assigned to conduct surveillance of the protest and the protestors, and take the photographs. The detective arrested Childs and another protester after he saw Childs approach him and write down, on a piece of paper, the license plate number of his unmarked government car.

"They told me if I didn't give over the piece of paper I would go to jail and I refused and I went to jail, and the piece of paper was taken away from me at the jail and the officer who transferred me said that was why I was arrested," Childs said on Wednesday.

The government file lists anti-war protesters in Atlanta as threats, the ACLU said. The ACLU of Georgia accuses the Bush administration of labeling those who disagree with its policy as disloyal Americans.

"We believe that spying on American citizens for no good reason is fundamentally un-American, that it's not the place of the government or the best use of resources to spy on its own citizens and we want it to stop. We want the spies in our government to pack their bags, close up their notebooks, take their cameras home and not engage in the spying anymore," Gerald Weber of the ACLU of Georgia said during a news conference.

"We have heard of not a single, government surveillance of a pro-war group," Weber said. "And I doubt we will ever hear of a single surveillance of a pro-war group."

Caitlin Childs, shown at an ACLU news conference.
(Photo: WXIA 11Alive.com)

The ACLU wants Congress and the courts to order government agencies, including the FBI, to stop unconstitutional surveillance.

Weber said the ACLU of Georgia may sue the government, in order to define, once and for all, what unconstitutional surveillance is in a post-911 America.

The FBI in Atlanta declined to comment. According to the Associated Press, FBI spokesman Bill Carter in Washington, D.C. said that all FBI investigations are conducted in response to information that the people being investigated were involved in or might have information about crimes.

As for Caitlin Childs' protest against meat eating, the files obtained by the ACLU include the DeKalb County Homeland Security report on the surveillance of Childs and the others. The detective wrote that he ordered Childs to give him the piece of paper on which she had written his license tag number, telling her that he did not want her or anyone else to have the tag number of his undercover vehicle.

The detective did not comment in his report about why his license tag number was already visible to the public.

The detective wrote that Childs was "hostile, uncooperative and boisterous toward the officers."

Childs said today that the agents shouldn't have been there in the first place, squelching legal dissent.

"We have the right to gather and protest and speak out."

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Quote:

"We have the right to gather and protest and speak out."

Not in Bush's fascist nation of America you don't

Instead of fighting to promote democracy throughout the world. We need to be fighting to preserve ours. Sad

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Really? Which form of protest has been stamped out? Which rallies have been broken up?

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McGentrix wrote:

Really? Which form of protest has been stamped out? Which rallies have been broken up?

Try to do a little research on the police activities at the most recent Republican Convention in New York City. Hundreds were arrested without cause, lured into police traps and duped by police agents dressed as protesters. Even people who just wanted to stand on a street corner in silence without signs

Videos expose police actions
Seven months after the mass arrests of over 1,800 protesters at the Republican Convention in New York City last summer, 91 percent of the nearly 1,700 cases that have been concluded have resulted in acquittals or the dismissal of charges. Four hundred cases were dismissed after video recordings made by volunteer observers and others showed that there was no reason for the arrests, the New York Times reported last week. Some of the videos also exposed false testimony by the police.

In the case of Dennis Kyne, arrested on the steps of the New York Public Library last August, police officer Matthew Wohl testified at trial last December that "we picked him up and we carried him while he squirmed and screamed. I had one of his legs because he was kicking and refusing to walk on his own."

Wohl's colorful description was apparently made up. Kyne's attorney showed the court a videotape showing his client walking down the steps of the library, not being carried and not kicking. The tape in addition showed that Wohl, who also signed complaints against four other protesters arrested at the time, was not present during any of the arrests. The charges against Kyne were immediately dropped. Four months later, the Manhattan District Attorney's office now says it is reviewing Wohl's account, but the cop is not expected to face any penalty for his false testimony, which in all likelihood is part of the police department's modus operandi in cases of mass arrests.

In another case, which took far longer to reach a conclusion, Alexander Dunlop was arrested on Second Avenue and charged with resisting arrest. Dunlop said he was not even a participant in the protest, but was seized by the police as part of a tactic of clearing the streets and intimidating demonstrators. Only recently did Dunlop discover that the official police videotape, which was to be introduced as evidence against him, had been edited to remove images that showed he never resisted arrest. A volunteer found a more complete version of the tape, and prosecutors agreed earlier this month to drop the charges, claiming improbably that a technician had accidentally cut just those parts of the tape that exonerated the defendant.

These two cases are only the most prominent among many. New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) president Donna Lieberman said that videotape evidence had led to the dropping of charges against 227 people arrested at an August 31 demonstration at the World Trade Center site. "The camera is a powerful tool that has enabled us not just to exonerate individuals, but hold police accountable and document serious wrongdoings," said Lieberman. Much of the video was assembled by I-Witness Video, a project that coordinated filming by hundreds of volunteers and worked with the National Lawyers Guild to reveal what actually took place during the arrests.

Joe(take off the blinders)Nation

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Thanks for the great post, Joe.

Don't think McGentrix wants to take off the blinders. Might be too scary.

au, you are also correct. Democracy is crumbling in America fast.

Let's see what kind of possible rebuttal McGentrix will come up with to dispute Joe's post.

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Any time spent explaining anything to McG is lost moments!

Anon

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Agreed. When one is bent on seeing only one viewpoint, it is tedious and senseless to debate.

However, when you're presented with overwhelming proof that contradicts your previously held views, then you must concede. If you're intelligent enough.

I would think he would have the decency to admit defeat at the hands of Joe Nation.

Isn't that what debate is all about?

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http://www.bartcop.com/touch-monkey3.gif

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McGentrix wrote:

Really? Which form of protest has been stamped out? Which rallies have been broken up?

Not as many as should be. Here's when your 'democracy' turned into a 'kleptocracy'. Remember those heady days as the Repubs endorsed the 'vigourous' side of polling??

http://www.democracycellproject.net/blog/archives/riot2005%20(3).jpg

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Quote:

The documents show that the Bush organization put on the payroll about 250 staffers, spent about $1.2 million to fly operatives to Florida and elsewhere, and paid for hotel bills adding up to about $1 million. To add flexibility to the travel arrangements, a fleet of corporate jets was assembled, including planes owned by Enron Corp., then run by Bush backer Kenneth Lay, and Halliburton Co., where Dick Cheney had served as chairman and chief executive officer.

Only a handful of the Brooks Brothers rioters were publicly identified, some through photographs published in the Washington Post. Jake Tapper's book on the recount battle, Down and Dirty, provides a list of 12 Republican operatives who took part in the Miami riot. Half of those individuals received payments from the Bush recount committee, according to the IRS records.

The Miami protesters who were paid by Bush recount committee were: Matt Schlapp, a Bush staffer who was based in Austin and received $4,276.09; Thomas Pyle, a staff aide to House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, $456; Michael Murphy, a DeLay fund-raiser, $935.12; Garry Malphrus, House majority chief counsel to the House Judiciary subcommittee on criminal justice, $330; Charles Royal, a legislative aide to Rep. Jim DeMint, R-S.C. $391.80; and Kevin Smith, a former GOP House staffer, $373.23.

Three of the Miami protesters are now members of Bush's White House staff, the Miami Herald reported last month. They include Schlapp, who is now a special assistant to the president; Malphrus, who is now deputy director of the president's Domestic Policy Council; and Joel Kaplan, another special assistant to the president. [See Miami Herald, July 14, 2002]

The Bush committee records show, too, that Bush's operation paid for the hotel where the Republican protesters celebrated after the Miami riot at a Thanksgiving Day party. At the party, the activists received thank-you phone calls from Bush and Cheney, and were serenaded by crooner Wayne Newton, singing "Danke Schoen".

source

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Democracy in action, Bush Crime Family style.

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America... Spying on Americans

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