full-disclosure - Spy Agency Mined Vast Data Trove

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Date: Tue Dec 27 22:49:27 2005
From: snowhare at nihongo.org (Benjamin Franz)
Subject: Spy Agency Mined Vast Data Trove

On Tue, 27 Dec 2005, Paul Schmehl wrote:

> Well, no, they are not "clearly illegal".  That is a matter of opinion and 
> not law.  In fact, all legal precedents indicate that the program is legal, 
> within the purview of the President's powers under Article II of the 
> Constitution.

Um. No.

What he has done is attempt to completely gut the 4th Amendement of the US 
Constitution of any meaning. To wit:

   The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers,
   and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be
   violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause,
   supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place
   to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

I don't see a 'except in time of war' clause anywhere. Do you?

It was simply never conceived that an administration would attempt to gut 
the 4th Amendment by force of sheer linguistic trickery. The second 
sentence clearly is defining when warrants for searches allowed by the 
first sentence may be issued. _Implicitly_ those searches may only be 
legally done using a legally issued warrant (no warrantless searches or 
the entire Amendment would be meaninglesss). But it fails to say so 
explictly.

Sooner or later the courts will very likely slap him down. If he is very 
unlucky, he will lose his impeachment-proof majority in Congress next year 
and be impeached for it.

But if the rest of us are very unlucky, this huge step towards 
totalitarianism by the Bush administration will be let stand as a very bad 
precedent.

I will guarantee you that, if it stands, historians in a century or so 
will point to Bush's administration as the point when the Republic clearly 
had made the transition to a Dictatorship where laws were in practice 
whatever the President said they were, and the "goddamned piece of paper" 
[1] called the US Constitution was just irrelevant.

-- 
Benjamin Franz

[1] GW Bush, Nov. 2005
      "Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,œItsâjust a goddamned piece of paper!â€
       http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_7779.shtml