Posted on 12/20/2005 3:12:26 AM PST by 7thson
Did anyone catch Bill O'Reilly last night? He put on two legal "experts" to discuss the warrentless wiretaps ordered by President Bush. One of the experts was Turley. Turley stated President Bush committed an illegal act that could be an impeachable offense. I am not worried about that. I do want to comment though about his statement and 50 USC Section 1802. How come nobody in the media has brought this up yet? I remember Turley always being hard on Clinton during the Impeachment and now he seems to always down on President Bush. What is his problem? Have this Constitutional experts not know the US Code? Someone help me out here.
Good point.
Damned if you do . . .
Turley is a DEMOCRAT, during the Clinton scandal, many would introduce him as such.
Sections 1801(a)(4 thru 6) or 1801(b or c) have more to do with terrorists. I'm wondering if the Executive Branch action that President Bush took pursuent to the 9/11 Report modified the scope of 1801(a)(1)(A)(i) to allow the authorization of electronic surveillance to the wider group above. It would certainly seem justified. I think the 1978 wording was aimed at the espionage community tied in with foreign embassies. I guess the detail here is the definition of United States person.
1801(i): "'United States person' means a citizen of the United States, an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence (as defined in section 1101(a)(20) of title 8), an unincorporated association of a substantial number of members of which are citizens of the United States or aliens lawfully admitted for permanent residence, or a corporation which isw incorporated in the United States, but does not include a corporation or an association which is a foreign power, as defined in subsection (a)(1), (2), or (3) of this section."
I would think "lawfully admitted" would exclude aliens here on fraudulant papers and on temporary (and expired) visas.
The problem I have is that powers in this section are subject to (annual) review in a couple of Senate committees, not in the MSM. W says the parameters and particulars of these taps have been reviewed approximately every 45 days with NSA and FBI and (presumably) the appropriate committees in Congress about a dozen times (with no complaints to now). The NYT stops sitting on this leaked operation, and the Dems go on the attack publically. It isn't that this section of the law is secret; I found it with a couple of minutes in public record online.
They only secrets the MSM hasn't released are contained in John Kerry's service record.
I really doubt that it raises to a high crimes and misdemeanors unless it turns out that they were intercepting calls between Michael Moore and Nancy Pelosi, etc. rather than Al Qaeda types.
Sounds smart to me. Why should he be forced to accept unwanted feedback. If you dont care enough to write a letter and pay 37 cents to mail it to his Georgetown address, why is that his concern?
I have a problem with the illegality of the government secretly spying on American citizens. The only way around it would be to notify people via recording that their international calls may be monitored for national security reasons. That way they have a choice and if they want privacy they can always write a letter.
Then why have a link title "Contact Us?"
Read post 43.
Obviously it was either never completed or was shut off as it links to the same place as his profile. If you are really interested that shouldnt hold you back.
Email: jturley@law.gwu.edu
Telephone: (202) 994-7001
Fax: (202) 994-9811
The George Washington University Law School
2000 H Street, N.W.
Washington, DC 20052
Thank you.
Oh yes Turley did say impeachment. He said he broke the law which is an impeachable offense.
Actually...'War Between the States'
Turley has gone over to the dark side. That's pretty obvious.
I bet J. Edgar Hoover (wherever he is) is having a big laugh about this so-called "illegality". Wiretaps without warrants have been going on from time immemorial.
What Turley and his ilk will not admit is that WE ARE AT WAR, the President has some exclusive wartime powers, and we are not talking about a warrant for a petty domestic criminal. We are talking about preventing another 9-11-2001, and saving the lives of tens of thousands of Americans.
All the so-called experts like Turley who are discussing this on TV, and vilifying the President for his actions, are either naive, disingenuous, stupid, or treasonous.
(1) a foreign government or any component thereof, whether or not recognized by the United States;
I would interpret "any component thereof" to include any and all agents working for a foreign government on US soil, engaged in acts of espionage and terror.
Who needs that spelled out?
Reall, Realism...you must have been born yesterday.
Possibly all four.
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