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December 19, 2005
AG Candidate David Van Os on Domestic Spying
CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS
George W. Bush has plunged the country into the kind of Constitutional crisis that was resolved in 1974 by the issuance of articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon and Nixon’s subsequent resignation. Make no mistake about it – the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution covers telephone communications, and warrants are required for wiretaps. (See for example, Berger v. New York, 388 U.S. 41 <1967>*). Federal judges can and do quickly issue warrants authorizing wiretaps whenever the government shows the need. George W. Bush cannot and does not claim that the judges have been stingy with such warrants; rather he claims that the legal and constitutional requirements simply do not apply to him. As if that were not bad enough, he also claims the authority to spy on peaceable American citizens who are engaging in traditional American freedom of speech and assembly. Make no mistake about this – Bush’s claim of the authority to wiretap Americans’ telephones without warrants and to spy on peaceful First Amendment activities is in brazen defiance of the Constitution.
George W. Bush’s arrogant claim that the "executive power" referenced in Article II of the Constitution authorizes him to override the First and Fourth Amendments is a declaration of war against the very notion of a Constitution, because if his claim wins out, then there are no longer any limits on what the chief executive can do, and we will be living under dictatorship instead of in a democracy. To George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Alberto Gonzalez, the Constitutional rights and liberties of Americans can be wiped away by a president’s executive decree – my dear friends and fellow Texans, a Bill of Rights that exists only at the sufferance of executive power is not a Bill of Rights at all, and an executive who claims such power is no longer the executor of Constitutional government, but has become by such actions an unconstitutional usurper. My words are provocative, because the situation is provocative when the U.S. president makes open war on the Bill of Rights that so many fearless American patriots sacrificed so much to preserve, protect and defend.
If Bush’s claim of the power to wiretap the telephone communications of Americans without warrants and to spy on peaceful American citizens is not blocked now, he will have prevailed in claiming that he can overrule our Bill of Rights by executive decree. There is no tomorrow on this one. There is no middle ground on this, no room for normal protocols. George W. Bush has declared that he has been wiretapping Americans without warrants, that he has the power to do so, and that he is going to continue to do so. He has declared that he is going to continue to spy on Americans’ freedom of speech and assembly. Bush has thrown down the gauntlet, and he has dared the people to pick it up.
A Texas Attorney General who understood that his job was to be the people’s lawyer would pick up that gauntlet. The Bill of Rights belongs just as much to the people of Texas as it does to anyone else in America. As Texas Attorney General I will fulfill my duty to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution, by fighting on behalf of Texans with every means and resource at my disposal against any and all such anti-constitutional federal usurpations. For example, I would move swiftly into the courts as the lawyer for the people of Texas to challenge the Bushite government’s defiance of the Bill of Rights and have their actions declared unconstitutional. The current Texas Attorney General clearly will not challenge them, since he is a Bushite mouthpiece and will not bite the hand of the master who appointed him to statewide Texas public office. Probably no other Texas public official will challenge them either; but under the Texas Constitution it is the Attorney General, more than other state office-holder, whom the people of Texas most depend upon to fight for their Constitutional rights and liberties; and I will do so against all comers.
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*United States Supreme Court Justice Tom Clark in Berger v. New York (1967): "They found ‘conversation’ was within the Fourth Amendment’s protections, and that the use of electronic devices to capture it was a ‘search’ within the meaning of the Amendment, and we so hold. …The purpose of the probable cause requirement of the Fourth Amendment to keep the state out of constitutionally protected areas until it has reason to believe that a specific crime has been or is being committed." (Justice Tom Clark was from Texas.) Justice Louis Brandeis, 77 years ago in Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438 (1928): "The progress of science in furnishing the government with means of espionage is not likely to stop with wire tapping. Ways may some day be developed by which the government, without removing papers from secret drawers, can reproduce them in court, and by which it will be enabled to expose to a jury the most intimate occurrences of the home. …As means of espionage, writs of assistance and general warrants are but puny instruments of tyranny and oppression when compared with wire tapping. …The makers of our Constitution…conferred, as against the government, the right to be left alone – the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men. To protect that right, every unjustifiable intrusion by the government upon the privacy of the individual, whatever the means employed, must be deemed a violation of the Fourth Amendment."
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Posted by Lyn Wall at December 19, 2005 09:14 AM | Permalink
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Comments
This is truly frightening in every way you can think of. Right now I am listening to Condi Rice on CNN justifying all of this with, of all things, 9/11 and our lack of information beforehand... I'm so sick and tired of hearing this as justification. If 9/11 IS justification for anything, then where is Osama bin Laden? Why doesn't the administration talk about him anymore?
All of this is nothing more than a tyrant tearing our constitution apart. A constitution, by the way, that King George considers nothing more than a "goddamn piece of paper". The only oath King George took when he assumed the office of President was to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. I think our dead Presidents would be rolling over in their graves...
Posted by: Amy Branham at December 19, 2005 06:46 PM
...so which brave senator is going to say to God's Anointed One (NOT!)"You will NOT continue to break the law!"Which one is going to say,"You can throw a press conference every morning just at nine, but that won't keep you from being held responsible for lying to the American people and for behaving as though you are above the law. We are A NATION OF LAWS, and you, by God, will abide by them or go the Richard Nixon route to political damnation!"
Who will say that? Kay Bailey Hutchison? Joe Lieberman? Hillary Clinton? Joe Biden? Harry Reid? Lindsay Graham? Barbara Boxer?
Or will we let him get away with it because our politicians and American reporters are afraid of Karl Rove and James Dobson and that fool Cheney, who probably chewed gum while the President of Afghanistan was being inaugurated?
Where are all of those trumpet voices that condemned Bill Clinton for merely having sex--no bullets flew, no bombs went off, no poorly armored vehicles doomed our young men and women, no one's civil rights were violated, no Iraqis died needlessly by the thousands. Where are the people who believe in the rule of law, and why are we not on the march toward Washington to find out for ourselves why our President can thumb his nose every day at all of us and say,"Screw you! I'll do as I please because I AM THE STATE!"
France and England executed kings--and a queen or two-- for that attitude. An earlier Congress that had really brave, committed people in it--Barbara Jordan, Howard Baker, et al.--impeached Nixon and threw him out for that attitude and what it led to. And now,ordinary people are disappearing and dying, folks.
What are we waiting for?
Posted by: Muriel Stubbs at December 19, 2005 11:20 PM
His press conference this morning was pathetic and the press are a bunch of pansies.This eavesdropping story has really thrown him for a loop and his boy Karl will soon get a new roomate called Bubba.
Posted by: Fred Villarreal at December 20, 2005 12:29 AM
Why does this latest infringement on our civil liberties surprise anyone?! This is what happens when you live under a fascist dictatorial regime!! Does anybody STILL think we live in a democratic United States?! We haven't lived under a democracy since the monkey king had the election HANDED to him by the Supreme Court thugs in 2000!!! Can you smell the fascism in the air, people?!
I guess all the optimists among us think the 2006 election is going to change anything! This administration can't afford to have the House turn over in 2006, so they'll be forced to rig the voting machines, disenfranchise voters, intimidate voters etc etc etc to sway the vote.
Does anybody actually believe they won't try to steal the election in 2006? This monkey and his illegal administration are going to have to be dragged out of the White House by the U.S. military or else IMPEACHMENT proceedings are going to have to be brought against Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and whomever else can be impeached by our illustrious U.S. House of Representatives (and I'm not holding my breath on that one)!
Bill Clinton was impeached for lying about sex, for chrissakes!!! We can't get this murderous monkey impeached for treason and murder?!!!
It blows my mind. How many more of our civil liberties are going to be trampled before people get a belly full and rise up and kick the living daylights out of these fascist usurpers?!
I will await what I hope are passionate, well thought out replies.
Posted by: Kris Graham at December 20, 2005 08:29 AM
When the NY Times broke their year long silence to tell this story the fascist leadership of the United States refused comment for twenty four hours for reasons of national security. This should be the end of this Presidency. No ifs........no buts. But what does this bunch of Nazis finally decide to do? They're coming straight at you. They're going to say "Hoorah for us!". They're going to dare you to do anything about it! AND, if they get away with it, we will NEVER recover our republic from tyranny with elections and campaigns and arguments and debates. It will take bloodshed and THAT may not even work! Good luck, America!
Posted by: Ron Graham at December 20, 2005 09:24 AM
John Conyers is taking the lead on this. Sign his letter to the president advising him of resolutions of investigation and censure. Details: in this post
Posted by: Lyn Wall at December 20, 2005 11:07 AM
I wrote about 8 hours too soon. God bless John Conyers. I can see, back in the sometimes-dim shadows of history, our Founding Fathers smiling on Conyers and saying the 18th-century equivalent of "You go, son!"
For God's sake, sign his letter today.
And God bless Lyn for posting the necessary info.
Posted by: Muriel Stubbs at December 20, 2005 12:32 PM
Also, sign Louise Slaughter's petition: http://www.votelouise.com/DemandHearingsforSpying
Posted by: Lyn Wall at December 20, 2005 12:35 PM
And be sure to add your name to a Freedom of Information Act request for the relevant legal opinions and memos written by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel laying out the supposed justification for this program.
Since the program's existence is no longer a secret, these memos should be released.
Posted by: Aimee Mobley Turney at December 20, 2005 01:02 PM