Warrantless Physical Searches and "Black Bag" Jobs: The Elimination of the Constitution of the United States
The US News and World Report article on the (possible) use by the Bush administration of warrantless physical searches is finally up.
Really, this article just indicates the extension of the previous legal justifications offered by Al Gonzales for the NSA wiretapping to cover physical searches as well.
But there is a significant difference in the application of the "Gonzales argument" to physical searches. The subjects of the searches are without question residents or citizens of the United States, and unless they live in one big-assed house, there can be no deceptive claim that "one end of the call is international."
So, now we have the basic terms of Gonzales' argument reduced to their starkest forms. Is a president, in "war time" completely exempt from the Constitution?
That is the argument this administration is making in the midst of the "long war" or "generational conflict." So, in effect they are arguing that for the next twenty years, the Constitution will no longer apply.
(Two Asides. First, let me say, that had I been living in the days of FDR when he so clumsily tromped all over the Constitution, I would have been writing almost this exact same piece. I am strongly libertarian when it comes to civil rights and the Constitution. I am not a Democrat by nature, I am a true centrist having voted about 50-50 over the last twelve years, whose opposition to extremes policy in this administration has put me in the anti-Bush camp.
Second. The alleged incidents of potential warrantless searches cited in the last two paragraphs of page two, sound more like the amateurish break-ins of Watergate rather than the more professional sacking of Daniel Ellsberg's psychologist's office.)
Really, this article just indicates the extension of the previous legal justifications offered by Al Gonzales for the NSA wiretapping to cover physical searches as well.
But there is a significant difference in the application of the "Gonzales argument" to physical searches. The subjects of the searches are without question residents or citizens of the United States, and unless they live in one big-assed house, there can be no deceptive claim that "one end of the call is international."
So, now we have the basic terms of Gonzales' argument reduced to their starkest forms. Is a president, in "war time" completely exempt from the Constitution?
That is the argument this administration is making in the midst of the "long war" or "generational conflict." So, in effect they are arguing that for the next twenty years, the Constitution will no longer apply.
(Two Asides. First, let me say, that had I been living in the days of FDR when he so clumsily tromped all over the Constitution, I would have been writing almost this exact same piece. I am strongly libertarian when it comes to civil rights and the Constitution. I am not a Democrat by nature, I am a true centrist having voted about 50-50 over the last twelve years, whose opposition to extremes policy in this administration has put me in the anti-Bush camp.
Second. The alleged incidents of potential warrantless searches cited in the last two paragraphs of page two, sound more like the amateurish break-ins of Watergate rather than the more professional sacking of Daniel Ellsberg's psychologist's office.)
posted by mikevotes at
6:54 AM
4 Comments:
Face it as long as he calls himself a wartime President, he can do whatever he wants. He can pull wartime presidential powers out his ass till we turn blue in the face.
By
Yukkione, at 11:14 PM
wartime president=lifetime dictator
By
Lew Scannon, at 7:38 AM
I agree with you, Mike - I don't care if it's FDR or George W., the president must obide by the Constitution.
That's why I have such respect for a Republican like Bob Barr who has been highly critical of the NSA spying program. Unlike many in today's GOP, Barr is NOT willing to put party loyalty above principle, GOP elephant above the Constitution.
Unfortunately, too many others in the GOP HAVE been willing to forget their principles and have allowed the administration to call the shots on nearly everything for the last five years.
Can you imagine what Hastert, Delay, Frist, Lott, Boehner, Britt Hume, O'Reilly, Hannity et al. would be saying if Bill Clinton had begun a warrantless wiretapping program after Oklahoma City? They would have been up in arms (and rightfully so.) But as long as their side's doing it and as long as it keeps them in power, I guess it's okay.
And this same GOP hypocrisy goes beyond the warrantless spying programs - if Bill Clinton had turned a $178 billion surplus into a $354 billion deficit, created a huge government giveaway to the drug companies in the form of the Medicare law, had pre-emptively invaded a foreign country on faulty intelligence, had run such an inept, incompetent, and corrupt post-invasion phase, and responded to Katrina by going to a fundraiser in San Diego, the GOPer's I named above would have been all over him (and again, rightfully so.)
But when it's their guy running up the deficits, fucking up the Iraq war, creating huge government programs that cause more problems than they solve, and trampling all over the Constitution in order to keep us safe in the generational War on Terror, these same GOP members are looking for P.R. ways to fool the American people into thinking it's not their fault.
By
Reality-Based Educator, at 8:20 AM
You got it, reality based. It's the rise of power over agenda. The Republicans really have no more agenda to speak of other than a transfer of wealth through various mechanisms up the economic ladder through various means.
It's all covered by that "trickledown" bull whether it's direct tax changes or less direct methods like the transfer of cost and risk through dereglation or rule changes.
And, Lew and Left, that's exactly it. Bush is claiming the power for as long as he wants it. Think this would be left unchallenged like this after a Dem gets elected in 2008.
If it does, then our democracy is truly lost.
Mike
By
mikevotes, at 1:46 PM
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