Former White House Lawyer says parts of Bush's Eavesdropping Programme "were illegal".
A former top lawyer for the Bush administration on Tuesday said that parts of the President Bush's controversial eavesdropping program were illegal.
This is a programme which Ashcroft himself refused to sign off on, so one can reasonably assume that even Ashcroft thought that this programme was illegal.There were certain aspects of the Terrorist Surveillance Program "that I could not find the legal support for," Jack Goldsmith, the former head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, told the Senate Judiciary Committee.
But he would not say exactly what law or constitutional principle the surveillance violated. Goldsmith said the White House has forbidden him from saying anything about the legal analysis underpinning the program - key details long sought by majority Democrats and some Republicans.
Goldsmith served as the Justice Department's top legal adviser to the White House from 2003 to 2004.
The legal rationale for the program is so secretive it was initially not even shared with the general counsel of the National Security Agency, which conducted the surveillance.
Goldsmith said he assumes that the White House does not want the TSP program scrutinized.
"There's no doubt the extreme secrecy not getting feedback from experts, not showing it to experts led to a lot of mistakes," he said.
However, typically of the Bush administration, Goldsmith is barred from even discussing the legal analysis undermining the programme.
This is part of a well established pattern, where Bush and Cheney claim some extraordinary executive power and then refuse to even justify the legal grounds on which they are claiming it, nor will they even allow others state what grounds they are using to justify the powers they claim to possess.
It really is the most awful intellectual cowardice, and a further extension of Cheney's basic belief that things are lawful because the President says they are, and that the President has certain powers simply because he claims to have them. Were Bush and Cheney truly confident that they have the constitutional powers that they claim to possess, then they would make their case clearly, stating where these powers take their legal authority from.
As it is, we have a drip drip of former administration lawyers all saying that the programme is illegal. And from the Bush administration we get only silence; and from Bush himself simply more of that effortless stupidity and inexplicable arrogance which have become his hallmark.
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7 comments:
Of course it was illegal, but do you think anything will be done about it? NOT ! !
Oh no, we'll have the spineless Democrats falling over themselves to make anything illegal legal at the first opportunity.
So what if BushCo declares discussing it with Congress to be illegal? If Congress says "talk" and Goldsmith talks, then what? Someone needs to try it, and a whistle-blower (if that's what Goldsmith is) needs to have the courage to try.
Wouldnt you love to see Dubya declare him as "supporting terrorism" if Goldsmith should decide to talk?
According to the constitution, you cannot declare crimes to be legal after the fact. There's a legal term for it or something, but I forget what it was.
Dave, I'd love for Goldsmith to be declared a whistleblower and say what he knows, but I'm not holding my breath.
And as for making illegal acts legal after the fact that's exactly what Bush is pushing for when he wants Congress to pass legislation that pardons telecommunications companies who illegally took part in his wiretapping programme. And there is every indication that the Dems are going to go along with this.
Constitutionally, I dont think they can. I mean, they can pass a law if they feel like it, but even stacked as it is I wouldnt think that the court would go along with it.
Though they are a bunch of Authoritarians these days.
Ah, the constitution! That "bit of paper" that Bush doesn't want to be bothered with... It's enough to make one go misty eyed remembering it.
Why don't the Democrats seriously go after Bush for his many crimes? Why are they so afraid to say that his actions are criminal and that he should be impeached?
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