Russ Feingold stood up in the Senate yesterday and told the plain, unvarnished truth. He didn’t shade his words, he didn’t spin, he didn’t make a lawyerly case, selecting just those facts that support his case and ignoring other facts.
He said:
The President authorized an illegal program to spy on American citizens on American soil, and then misled Congress and the public about the existence and legality of that program.
The facts are straightforward: Congress passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as “FISA”, nearly 30 years ago to ensure that as we wiretap suspected terrorists and spies, we also protect innocent Americans from unjustified government intrusion. FISA makes it a crime to wiretap Americans on U.S. soil without the requisite warrants, and the President has ordered warrantless wiretaps of Americans on U.S. soil. The President has broken that law, and that alone is unacceptable. But the President did much more than that.
Not only did the President break the law, he also actively misled Congress and the American people about his actions, and then, when the program was made public, about the legality of the NSA program. He has fundamentally violated the trust of the American people. The President’s own words show just how seriously he has violated that trust.
…the President knew he wasn’t telling the complete story. But engaged in tough political battle during the presidential campaign, and later over Patriot Act reauthorization, he wanted to convince the public that a systems of checks and balances was in place to protect innocent people from government snooping. He knew when he gave those reassurances that he had authorized the NSA to bypass the very system of checks and balances that he was using as a shield against criticisms of the Patriot Act and his Administration’s performance.
The President’s claims of inherent executive authority, and his assertions that the courts have approved this type of activity, are baseless.
it doesn’t even comply with the National Security Act, which requires the entire memberships of the House and Senate Intelligence Committee to be “fully and currently informed of the intelligence activities of the United States.”
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The President has only one defense. Feingold called it baseless, and it was baseless until the administration was forced to fall back on it as a last resort. The President is asserting that the FISA law is unconstitutional because it infringes on his Article Two powers. If we accept the administration’s argument, Congress can pass no law regulating the proper use of the armed services. This is not a legal argument with any merit whatsoever. And, yet, Arlen Specter, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee is at least willing to entertain this defense because he has no idea what the President has done. And lacking that knowledge he can only assert:
“The president may be wrong, but he has acted in good faith.”
When has George W. Bush ever acted in good faith? Good faith is not the point. Our constitutional protections and separations of power are there so we don’t have to rely on the good faith of our civil servants.
Russ Feingold told the truth. In a time of war, our President has abused his power, violated the constitution, broken the law, assigned to himself powers which he does not have, lied repeatedly, and signalled his intention to continue to do all of these things in the future.
The Dem leadership is reluctant to fight, the MSM is dismissive of these grave legal criticisms, and Congress is supine. Only Feingold and concerned citizens are standing up for what is right. This will be remembered when the 2008 primaries come around. In the meantime, any Senator that fails to back Russ’s efforts, deserves a primary challenge.
