| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Yang, AthD h.c, Kicking AWOLs Cocaine Snorting Ass" |
| Date: |
26 Dec 2005 04:21:41 AM |
| Object: |
ZNet: A Time to Impeach |
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=72&ItemID=9376
President Bush may find himself in deep trouble after ordering and
defending illegal wiretaps of U.S. citizens -- a crime for which
Richard Nixon was nearly impeached.
When the U.S. Senate last Friday refused to renew the liberticidal
Patriot Act -- with its provisions for spying on Americans' use of
libraries and the Internet, among other Constitution-shredding
provisions of that iniquitous law -- it was in part because that
morning's New York Times had revealed how Bush and his White House had
committed a major crime.
By ordering the National Security Agency -- the N.S.A, so secretive
that in Washington its initials are said to stand for "No Such Agency"
-- to wiretap and eavesdrop on thousands of American citizens without
a court order, Bush committed actions specifically forbidden by the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Passed in 1978 after the
Senate's Church Committee documented in detail the Nixon
administration's widespread use of U.S. intelligence agencies to spy
on the anti-Vietnam war movement and other political dissidents, FISA
"expressly made it a crime for government officials 'acting under
color of law' to engage in electronic eavesdropping 'other than
pursuant to statute.'", as the director of the Center for National
Security Studies, Kate Martin, told the Washington Post this past
weekend.
And the FISA statute required authorization of the secret Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Court to make such domestic spying legal.
Bush and his NSA sought no such authorization before invading American
citizens' right to privacy -- a blatant flouting of the law that made
both wavering Democrats and libertarian Republicans mad enough to vote
against extending the hideous Patriot Act, which thankfully will now
expire at the end of the year.
Bush not only acknowledged, and defended, this illegal eavesdropping
in a Saturday radio address, he went further in a Monday morning press
conference, saying he'd "suggested" it. But as Wisconsin Democratic
Senator Russ Feingold -- who, together with conservative Idaho
Republican Larry Craig, led the filibuster that defeated the Patriot
Act's renewal -- said this weekend, "This is not how our democratic
system of government works--the president does not get to pick and
choose which laws he wants to follow."
But Bush had plenty of bipartisan help from Democratic co-conspirators
in keeping knowledge of this illegal spying from reaching the American
public. It began in November 2001, in the wake of 9/11, and -- from
the very first briefing for Congressional leaders by ***** Cheney until
today -- Democrats on the Senate and House Intelligence Committees
were told about it. Those witting and complicit in hiding the crime
included Democratic Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, former chairman
and later ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, former ranking member on the House
Intelligence Committee. They knew it was a crime -- Rockefeller, for
example, warned the administration against it -- and yet did not make
it public. They were frightened by polls showing security hysteria at
its height.
Worse, the New York Times itself was part of the coverup. When it
broke its scoop last Friday, the Times in its article admitted that,
"After meeting with senior administration officials to hear their
concerns, the newspaper delayed publication for a year to conduct
additional reporting. Some information that administration officials
argued could be useful to terrorists has been omitted."
In other words, the Times sat on its story until after the 2004
presidential elections, when American voters might have been able to
stop this criminal conduct by voting out the criminal. Not content
with employing Judith Miller as the megaphone for relaying the Bush
administration's lies about Saddam's having weapons of mass
destruction, the Times again proved its servility to power by not
telling its readers it knew of criminal spying on them for an entire
year, until the election cycle was long past. Yet this aspect of the
Times' story has gone unremarked in the mass media.
Bush's excuses for the illegal eavesdropping are indeed risible. The
Times didn't mention it, but of 19,000 requests for eavesdropping the
Federal Intelligence Security Court has received from the Executive
Branch since 1979, only five have ever been refused. Bush claimed
again on Monday that this flagrant flouting of the FISA law was
necessary because fighting "terrorists" needed to be done "quickly."
Yet, as the Times reported, the secret court can grant approval for
wiretaps "within hours."
And the excuse Bush offered Monday morning that this illegal
subversion of FISA was necessary to prevent 9/11-style terrorism is
equally laughable. As the ACLU pointed out in a study of FISA two
years ago, "Although the Patriot Act was rushed into law just weeks
after 9/11, Congress's later investigation into the attacks did not
find that the former limits on FISA powers had contributed to the
government's failure to prevent the attacks."
A Zogby poll released Nov. 4 showed that, when asked if they agreed
that, "If President Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for
going to war with Iraq, Congress should consider holding him
accountable through impeachment," Americans answered yes by 53 percent
to 42 percent. It is therefore not simply extremist raving to suggest
that impeachment of George Bush should be put on the table.
Remember that, in the impeachment of Richard Nixon, Article 2 of the
three Articles of Impeachment dealt with illegal wiretapping of
Americans. It said that Nixon committed a crime "by directing or
authorizing [intelligence] agencies or personnel to conduct or
continue electronic surveillance or other investigations for purposes
unrelated to national security, the enforcement of laws, or any other
lawful function of his office."
There was no national security justification for Bush's illegal NSA
wiretaps -- which could easily have been instituted by following the
FISA law's provisions -- and, instead of being related to "enforcement
of laws," Bush's eavesdropping was indisputably in contravention of
the law of the land.
And when a president commits a crime in violation of his oath of
office swearing to uphold the law, it is time to impeach.
-----
Yang
a.a. #28
AthD (h.c.) conferred by the regents of the LCL
a.a. pastor #-273.15, the most frigid church of Celcius nee Kelvin
EAC Econometric Forecast and Sorcery Division
Proudly plonked by Lani Girl and Crazyalec (aka aka Yang's little poltregeist *****)
The Bush 'balanced' budget: 1.6 trillion and worsening
The Bush 'economic' policy: 12.5 million FEWER jobs than Clinton and counting
The Bush Iraq lie: -2164 GIs, one friend's co-worker's son and mounting
Having Bush ***** up my country: Worthless
-----
"Now, did I want to go? Hell no."
-duke (duckgumbo32@cox.net), aka PedophilEarl J Weber, 63
year old mateless, heirless biological failure
of Afton Oaks Apartment, Baton Rouge, on why
a Neocon chickenhawk like him pussied out of
the Vietnam War.
.
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