Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Now You Can Stick Me In the Other Eye And I Still Won't Get A Warrant - Neener, Neener, Neener!

We already know the Shrub thinks he is above the law and the sticky ethical problems of his warrantless wire tapping. But, by fixing the FISA rules and then applying retroactively for warrants, this whole situation could go away (well, not really as it won't change what the W, Rove and Co has already done).

But we have to ask two questions: 1) If you were a FISA Judge, why would you stay on the job knowing you are irrelevant? And 2) Why won't the W, Rove and Co fix the problem? Here's a taste from today's propaganda fest delivered by Scotty:
Q My question is, instead of spending time trying to fine-tune the rhetoric over what you want to call this program for political purposes, why not seek to amend FISA so that it can better suit your purposes, which is another thing the previous administration did when it wasn't considered to be agile enough? So why not, if you want the program to be more responsive, to be more agile, why not seek to amend FISA?

MR. McCLELLAN: Let's look at a practical example. Do you expect our commanders, in a time of war, to go to a court while they're trying to surveil the enemy? I don't think so. This is a time of war. This is about wartime surveillance of the enemy. That's what this is about. And we don't ask our commanders to go to the court and ask for approval while they're trying to gain intelligence on the enemy. So I think that's a real practical term to look at it in when you're talking about this issue, because that's what this is about.

Q There's no way to amend --

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, no, let me back up, because I talked about this the last couple days. I mean, it's a very good question and an important question. FISA is an important tool. We use it. General Hayden talked about that. When we were briefing members of Congress over the course of the last few years -- I think it was more recently, over, maybe, the last couple years -- I think the Attorney General talked about it -- we talked with congressional leaders, bipartisan congressional leaders, about this very issue: Should we go and get legislation that would reflect the authority the President already has? And those leaders felt that it could compromise our national security interest and this program if we were to go and get legislation passed. Because we don't want to let the enemy know about our play book, and the more you talk about this program, the more potential it has to harm our national security interest. That's why we don't get into talking about the operational aspects about it. But it is important for the American people to understand exactly what this program is and how limited it is and what its purpose is. There's been some misrepresentations. Now, with that said, as I pointed out, we work very closely with Congress. We'll continue to work closely with Congress as we move forward. But the President has the authority and the responsibility to do what he's doing and he's going to keep doing it.

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