Bush Administration Has Been Using Illegal Wiretapping and Spying
Activity for Political Purposes. Doubt It?
Submitted by mark karlin on Mon, 08/20/2007
A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL
In an under covered trial in a California courtroom, a Constitutional
drama of major significance is unfolding.
It is a federal lawsuit filed by Americans who claim that the Bush
Administration, with the cooperation of AT&T, illegally spied on
them. The Bush Administration has taken the Orwellian position that
the trial must not be allowed to proceed because it would require the
White House to reveal if they indeed have illegally monitored the
plaintiffs and that, the Bush Politburo argues, would violate
"state secrets."
Why do we sometimes think that we are living in the Soviet-era, Stasi
run East Germany?
Maybe thatıs because a headline last week read, "US moves to use spy
satellites for domestic surveillance."
Or maybe, returning to the trial in California, that the White House
refused to sign a document assuring the court that their
"eavesdropping" was not being used domestically under the guise of
claiming it was being used to stop terrorism:
But the 9th Circuit judges were skeptical. They wondered why at
least one key issue cannot be explored -- whether there was domestic
spying on Americans without court approval, which civil liberties
lawyers say violates the law.
Judges Margaret McKeown and Michael Daly Hawkins, both Clinton
appointees, cited public comments by President Bush and other
administration officials denying any such warrantless domestic
surveillance, and asked the government why it can't provide similar
statements under oath in the court case.
McKeown, who stressed that she didn't expect Bush himself to
provide the sworn statements, questioned how such evidence would
jeopardize national security.
And when an AT&T lawyer later told the judges that Bush has
already issued denials publicly, Hawkins said that public statements
aren't the equivalent of statements under oath in court or in court
declarations.
"No court in the land would be satisfied with public statements,
be it the president of the United States or the president of AT&T,"
Hawkins said.
In short, we once again have the White House playing the game of
weıll talk with you, but we wonıt testify under oath because then you
can legally charge us with perjury because, of course, weıre going to
lie.
But this is about spying on American citizens.
Reaching back into the recesses of our memory, we recall that in one
of Alberto Gonzalesıs farcical appearances before Congress when the
FISA illegal eavesdropping first broke in The New York Times (after
they sat on the story for a year) Gonzales was asked if the spying
might have been used for domestic purposes other than terrorism.
Gonzales responded, in essence, that he couldnıt say for sure.
In a recent BuzzFlash editorial, we noted that the acquisition of
domestic spying powers for political purposes was one of three key
strategies in the Republican effort to achieve long-term control of
the United States apparatus of government.
With domestic spying powers just recently legally expanded by a
Democratic Congress to include, according to The New York Times,
certain types of physical searches on American soil and the
collection of Americans' business records, the Bush Administration
now has legal authority to achieve what Nixon attempted to do
illegally in the Watergate burglary.
And if the Democratic Party were to sue over a modern day
Watergate-style operation, the Bush Administration would tell the
court that it canıt reveal why it conducted the spying operation on a
political party because it would violate national security.
This is not BuzzFlash idle speculation; it is what the Bush
Administration, now enabled by the lack of caucus discipline in a
Democratic Congress, has achieved.
God help us all.
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/editorials/157
--
get real. like jesus would ever own a gun or vote republican.
.
|
