The End of the Fourth Amendment and the Begining of the Elected King
Mar 17
The GOP appears to be on the verge of adopted an elected King as their official position. Glenn Greenwald lays out the details, but, in essence, many members of the GOP Senate caucus are prepared to create a bill that allows the President to eavesdrop on anyone, anywhere, at anytime on his own say so without prior approval or any real oversight. The bill does state that the President must report to a sub committee, but that sub committee does not have the power to end the program, and it is legally prohibited from telling anyone about what it knows. In fact, the bill makes it illegal for anyone to tell anyone else about any aspect of the program. The American people have no right to know what their government is doing, apparently.
This is the end of the road for the GOP’s belief in our Constitution. When faced with a President who claimed that he had the right to break the law, they not only voted against holding investigations into that President, they now want to, at least partially, confirm that notion. This law destroys the Fourth Amendment and explicitly states that no one — not the courts, not Congress — can have any say in or exercise any control over the Executive when it comes to matters of wiretapping. I see no reason why, if this passes, the GOP Senate would not do something similar each and every time that the President claims the authority to do as he wishes. The moderates in the GOP will not stop them — this bill is sponsored by Snowe, Graham, and Hagel. Even the moderates, it seems, have adopted the President as King theory.
So this is where we are: on matters of national security, the Republican in the White House claims that his actions are above the law and even, perhaps, some aspects of the Constitution such as the Bill of Rights; the Republican controlled Senate refused to investigate the illegal activities of the President; Republicans in the Senate, including three generally considered moderates, are on the verge of ratifying the President’s illegal activities and, indirectly, his wide-ranging notion of Executive power. The GOP has already gone very far down the road to an elected King. If they pass this law they will be telling the entire world that they think the Constitutional experiment has failed. They will have driven a dagger into the back of the system of checks and balances that survived foreign invasion, a civil war, two world wars and the cold war and all manner of social upheaval.
They will have created a surveillance state run entirely out of the Oval Office, and they will have done so because they are more scared of Osama Bin Laden than they were of the Soviets, the Nazis, and the KKK. Democracies die because their people are too afraid to keep them alive.
#1 by Fred at March 17th, 2006
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Kevin: When faced with a President who claimed that he had the right to break the law,
Fred: There you go again. You are a unmitigated, baldfaced liar. The president has claimed that what he did is within the law. Your assertion that he has said he has the right to break the law is untrue. Of course, you know that and choose to keep on lying about it.
#2 by Fred at March 17th, 2006
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Kevin: When faced with a President who claimed that he had the right to break the law,
Fred: There you go again. You are a unmitigated, baldfaced liar. (Why beat around the bush when responding to a liar?) The president has claimed that what he did is within the law. Your assertion that he has said he has the right to break the law is untrue. Of course, you know that and choose to keep on lying about it.
#3 by Stormy Dragon at March 17th, 2006
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Agree with your assessment of the Republican party, but I think you’re far too narrow in placing the blame. Neither party has been a champion of limiting government power. Both see the federal government as all powerful; the only difference between the two is what goals the want to accomplish with that power, although even that has been becoming increasingly muddles over the last 10 years.
#4 by tgirsch at March 17th, 2006
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Not quite. He has asserted that the law (in this case FISA) does not apply to him. I don’t see how you can meaningfully distinguish “laws don’t apply to me” from “I am above the law.”
Of course, it’s not the executive’s job, nor his place, to interpret the law; his job is to execute it and abide by it. Challenges to the law are for the courts to decide, not the executive.
#5 by kevin at March 17th, 2006
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“Both see the federal government as all powerful;”
Not true, at least generally. We aren;t talking about things the government is allowed to partipate in — we are talking about the exercise of unfettered power. There is nothing in the Dem playbook that would remove judicial oversight or congressional checks on the executive. The two parties aren’t even close on that score.
#6 by Ted at March 17th, 2006
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So the basic premise here is, if you are a Republican, you have an uncontrollable desire to run for office and then, if you win, give all your power away. Could be the case, but I am not entirely convinced.
#7 by kevin at March 17th, 2006
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Ted
Who cares why they are doing it — do you deny that they are? Because you cannot say “its not logical” in the face of the evidence that the illogical is indeed happening.
#8 by Ted at March 18th, 2006
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Or maybe, just maybe, your reporting of the end of the free world is just a bit premature…
#9 by kevin at March 18th, 2006
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Ted
Wqhat facts do I have wrong, Ted? Does the bill or does the bill not remove 4th amendment protectiosna dn any oversight form this program? And if my facts are correct, then where, exactly, is my interpretation wrong?
#10 by Ted at March 19th, 2006
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Not the facts, the conclusions:
“If they pass this law they will be telling the entire world that they think the Constitutional experiment has failed. They will have driven a dagger into the back of the system of checks and balances”
Can you say hyperbole?
#11 by kevin at March 19th, 2006
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Ted
The how would you describe a party that deliberately writes a lw that removes Constitutional protections from people and ends the abality of Congress to exercise its constitutionally required role of watchdog to the executive?
#12 by Ted at March 20th, 2006
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kevin,
unless you can formulate a question that is applicable to the situation at hand, and does not include extension, expansion, or distortion, I’m not going to bite. I intend to offense, but given your track record, I don’t think you can do this.
#13 by rMatey at March 20th, 2006
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This just in from MSNBC, where presidunce giving speech - I will continue to intercept terrorist communications (to thunderous applause.) Glad he’s gonna continue to do things illegally.
#14 by Fred at March 20th, 2006
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Quote from the Commander in Chief during a war: “I will continue to intercept terrorist communications”
Good for him. Keep it up.
#15 by Peter at May 23rd, 2006
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To Fred:
If the President can be the sole power who decides what laws and what parts of the Constitution apply to him, then how can any one say that there are any checks and balances to his power?