Politics before policy

And certainly before the Constitution.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts said Friday the Bush administration's domestic spying is within the president's inherent power under the Constitution, and he rejected criticism that Congress was kept in the dark about it.

The program is "legal, necessary and reasonable," the Kansas Republican wrote in a 19-page letter, taking a particularly expansive view of the president's authority for the warrantless surveillance.

Roberts, of course, is lying to provide legal cover for the administration and its illegal spying program. But it's incredible that politicians make decisions and write 19-page letters that diminish their own power and influence. They've handed Bush the keys to the car and then complain that he doesn't consult them about where he takes it.

But Senators committing mass irrelevance is beside the point. We're talking about whether the NSA's domestic spying that Bush authorized is legal. Let's review:

The 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act "requires executive branch agencies to get approval for domestic surveillance requests from a special court, whose proceedings are secret to protect national security."

Bush has authorized the National Security Agency to conduct surveillance on Americans without seeking warrants from the court.

President Bush signed a secret order in 2002 authorizing the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on U.S. citizens and foreign nationals in the United States, despite previous legal prohibitions against such domestic spying.

In other words (as Bush likes to say when he's talking down to his supporters),

Months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials.
The law requires warrants to conduct domestic surveillance. Bush's program conducts domestic surveillance without bothering to get warrants. That makes it illegal.

Understand? So do Bush and Cheney, as evidenced below. Which means they know the program is illegal. Which means that every time they say it's legal, they're lying.

In 2004 and 2005, Bush repeatedly argued that the controversial Patriot Act package of anti-terrorism laws safeguards civil liberties because US authorities still need a warrant to tap telephones in the United States.

"Any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order," he said on April 20, 2004 in Buffalo, New York.

"Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so," he added.

On April 19, 2004, Bush said the Patriot Act enabled law-enforcement officials to use "roving wiretaps," which are not fixed to a particular telephone, against terrorism, as they had been against organized crime.

"You see, what that meant is if you got a wiretap by court order -- and by the way, everything you hear about requires court order, requires there to be permission from a FISA court, for example," he said in Hershey, Pennsylvania.

But under Bush's super-secret order, first revealed Friday by the New York Times and details of which have been confirmed by Bush and other top US officials, the National Security Agency does not need that court's approval.

"A couple of things that are very important for you to understand about the Patriot Act. First of all, any action that takes place by law enforcement requires a court order," he said July 14, 2004 in Fond Du Lac, Wisconsin.

"In other words, the government can't move on wiretaps or roving wiretaps without getting a court order," he said. "What the Patriot Act said is let's give our law enforcement the tools necessary, without abridging the Constitution of the United States, the tools necessary to defend America."

The president has also repeatedly said that the need to seek such warrants means "the judicial branch has a strong oversight role."

"Law enforcement officers need a federal judge's permission to wiretap a foreign terrorist's phone, a federal judge's permission to track his calls, or a federal judge's permission to search his property," he said in June.

"Officers must meet strict standards to use any of these tools. And these standards are fully consistent with the Constitution of the United States," he added in remarks at the Ohio State Highway Patrol Academy.

He made similar comments in Baltimore, Maryland, on July 20 2005.

Vice President Dick Cheney offered similar reassurances at a Patriot Act event in June 2004, saying that "all of the investigative tools" under the law "require the approval of a judge before they can be carried out."

"And similar statutes have been on the book for years, and tested in the courts, and found to be constitutional," he said in Kansas City, Missouri.

My, how their tune has changed. Ask them for an explanation and, if you get anything at all, it'll be about how there's an enemy out there who means to do us harm and must be taken seriously.

I take al-Qaeda seriously enough to know that it decides to attack again, the Bush administration can do nothing to stop it. And I take no pleasure in that knowledge. I wish there were competent people in key positions in the administration who could stop the evil of this terror organization's violent attacks. I wish that key members of the Bush administration did more than pay lip service to the work of governing.

What I don't take seriously is the idea that al-Qaeda can be stopped by allowing federal agents to listen to my phone calls, or yours, without oversight. And I'm not going to let the Bush administration scare me into looking the other way when it breaks the law.

Incidentally, I don't like to repeat myself, writing posts that pretty much say the same thing about the NSA's domestic spying program. (Not the "terrorist surveillance program." The NSA is spying on us, not terrorists.) But the Bush administration, and the entire GOP machine for that matter, conduct their business by repeating lies over and over. So perhaps the only way to topple their wall of lies is is to take a page from their playbook and build a wall of truth.