In the America we used to know, the Court might have a problem with a pResident who spies on the press.
It's an interesting, and plausible, theory. My own theory is a shade more grim. I'm picturing Karl Rove sitting at his computer, spying on the Dems during the 2004 presidential campaign. But, then, I don't believe a damn word Bushie says.
Meanwhile, Jonathan Alter at Newsweek reveals that on December 6, the pResident, with monarchic pretensions, "summoned" New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger and executive editor Bill Keller to appear before him in the Oval Office in a last ditch effort to dissuade them from reporting the Snoopgate story.
Dec. 19, 2005 - Finally we have a Washington scandal that goes beyond sex, corruption and political intrigue to big issues like security versus liberty and the reasonable bounds of presidential power. President Bush came out swinging on Snoopgate—he made it seem as if those who didn't agree with him wanted to leave us vulnerable to Al Qaeda—but it will not work. We're seeing clearly now that Bush thought 9/11 gave him license to act like a dictator, or in his own mind, no doubt, like Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War.
No wonder Bush was so desperate that The New York Times not publish its story on the National Security Agency eavesdropping on American citizens without a warrant, in what lawyers outside the administration say is a clear violation of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. I learned this week that on December 6, Bush summoned Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger and executive editor Bill Keller to the Oval Office in a futile attempt to talk them out of running the story. The Times will not comment on the meeting, but one can only imagine the president's desperation.
Bush was desperate to keep the Times from running this important story—which the paper had already inexplicably held for a year—because he knew that it would reveal him as a law-breaker.
What is especially perplexing about this story is that the 1978 law set up a special court to approve eavesdropping in hours, even minutes, if necessary. In fact, the law allows the government to eavesdrop on its own, then retroactively justify it to the court, essentially obtaining a warrant after the fact. Since 1979, the FISA court has approved tens of thousands of eavesdropping requests and rejected only four. There was no indication the existing system was slow—as the president seemed to claim in his press conference—or in any way required extra-constitutional action.
Bush Snoopgate Eavesdropping Spying King George Impeach Bush Media New York Times
