Bush just said he has the right to spy on people because it's provided by the second article of the Consitution. Let's take a look:
Article IISection 1.The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his office during the term of four years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same term, be elected, as follows:
Each state shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States, shall be appointed an elector.
The electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for two persons, of whom one at least shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves. And they shall make a list of all the persons voted for, and of the number of votes for each; which list they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates, and the votes shall then be counted. The person having the greatest number of votes shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed; and if there be more than one who have such majority, and have an equal number of votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately choose by ballot one of them for President; and if no person have a majority, then from the five highest on the list the said House shall in like manner choose the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by States, the representation from each state having one vote; A quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. In every case, after the choice of the President, the person having the greatest number of votes of the electors shall be the Vice President. But if there should remain two or more who have equal votes, the Senate shall choose from them by ballot the Vice President.
The Congress may determine the time of choosing the electors, and the day on which they shall give their votes; which day shall be the same throughout the United States.
Um... George... this article covers electing a President. You don't have the right to spy on citizens without a warrant just because according to the Constitution we elect Presidents.
What amazes me about this is that it's such a blatant falsehood. I'm sure this is how it went:
"George, you were spying on people without a warrant. That's illegal."Posted by jherr at December 19, 2005 12:59 PM"I know, but what do I say."
"Just say it was legal. Make up some crap about the second amendment. Nobody will check it anyway. And the talking heads will just spew it for months until anyone who says your wrong is pasted as a 'left wing moonbat'." "Oh, yeah, you mean business as usual."
"Right. You guys are doing a heckuva job! Heh, heh, heh... heh."
Not to defend the pruned shrub, but Article II of the constitution has three other sections that you ommitted. Most of the Article does speak to how a President is elected, but the remaining sections speak on the role and duties of the executive branch which include the notion to which he referred in Section 3 "...he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed." Or in section 4 which mentions the vague instructions about impeachment which I would have expected that you would have mentioned instead.
Posted by: Mike at December 19, 2005 05:45 PMOk. Strangely the source I had left these sections out. But I think it's pretty thin. Apparently this clause has been used for executive orders. But it seems strange that it's used in direct contradiction to due process.
The running rumor on the web is that the reason they cant use the FISA court is that the "tapping" is actually an active monitoring of all calls coming into and out of the US. And thus there is never a discrete start and end to a tap. They are monitoring every single conversation for keywords.
Posted by: jherr at December 19, 2005 09:37 PMThanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
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