Juicio Brennan

In April of 2004, while George Bush was authorizing illegal wiretaps, he stated in a national speech that “a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed.” You can watch the video for yourself at ThinkProgress:

Secondly, there are such things as roving wiretaps. Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires — a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we’re talking about chasing down terrorists, we’re talking about getting a court order before we do so. It’s important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution.

Brendan Nyhan has cataloged five of Bush’s speeches from 2004 to 2005 where he talks about the necessity of judicial approval for wiretaps, as well as all the White House fact sheets about them. Here are a couple of quotes from the speeches:

President Bush — April 19, 2004:

For years, law enforcement used so-called roving wire taps to investigate organized crime. You see, what that meant is if you got a wire tap by court order — and, by the way, everything you hear about requires court order, requires there to be permission from a FISA court, for example.

President Bush — July 20, 2005:

The Patriot Act helps us defeat our enemies while safeguarding civil liberties for all Americans. The judicial branch has a strong oversight role in the application of the Patriot Act. Law enforcement officers need a federal judge’s permission to wiretap a foreign terrorist’s phone, or to track his calls, or to search his property. Officers must meet strict standards to use any of the tools we’re talking about. And they are fully consistent with the Constitution of the United States.

bushfisalieswiretapsimpeachment

Well, Bush has really done it this time. If you have found yourself in a hole the last few days, Bush authorized illegal domestic wiretaps over three dozen times during his presidency. Worse yet, the Times knew about this story for over a year before publishing it because the Bush administration asked them not to in the months just before the 2004 elections.

Here is a list of info to help you understand the legal and social ramifications of a president circumventing the judicial and legislative branches of a democratic government:

From the EFF, a description of FISA:

FISA is the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which establishes a legal regime for “foreign intelligence” surveillance separate from ordinary law enforcement surveillance… FISA is aimed at regulating the collection of “foreign intelligence” information in furtherance of U.S. counterintelligence, whether or not any laws were or will be broken.

From Atrios, the actual law:

FISA makes it a crime, punishable by up to five years in prison, to conduct electronic surveillance except as provided for by statute. The only defense is for law government agents engaged in official duties conducting “surveillance authorized by and conducted pursuant to a search warrant or court order.” [50 U.S.C. § 1809]

From that little thing, the Constitution of the United States of America, Amendment IV:

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.

From Wikipedia, the definition of a dictator:

In modern usage, Dictator refers to an absolutist or autocratic ruler who governs outside the rule of law. However unlike the Roman original, they rarely use it as a title, for it is generally used by their opponents as a term of abuse for totalitarian rule, just like despot and tyrant (also unlike Antiquity). Dictators often acquire power in a coup d’état, or by suspending the existing constitution.

In regards to needing to speedy wiretaps, TPM has researched the law:

It turns out that FISA specifically empowers the Attorney General or his designee to start wiretapping on an emergency basis even without a warrant so long as a retroactive application is made for one “as soon as practicable, but not more than 72 hours after the Attorney General authorizes such surveillance.” (see specific citation, here).

Finally, there is no evidence that Bush should have needed to circumvent the FISA court. On the contrary, they approved all 1228 wiretaps requested in 2002!!! From no other than John Ashcroft (via C&L):

During calendar year 2002, 1228 applications were made to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for electronic surveillance and physical search. The Court initially approved 1226 applications in 2002. Two applications were “approved as modified,” and the United States appealed these applications to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, as applications having been denied in part. On November 18, 2002, the Court of Review issued a judgment that “ordered and adjudged that the motions for review be granted, the challenged portions of the orders on review be reversed, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court’s Rule 11 be vacated, and the cases be remanded with instructions to grant the United States’ applications as submitted…” Accordingly, all 1228 applications presented to the Foreign Intelligene Surveillance Court in 2002 were approved.

As Senator Feingold said, “He is a president, not a king.”

bushnsafisaconstitutionfeingolddictator

Many of you know I love numbers. Well, here are numbers no one can love. Here are numbers to mark 1000 days of war and bloodshed:

2,339 Allied troops killed
15,955 US troops wounded in action (conservative)
53,460 Iraqi insurgents killed
30,000 Estimated Iraqi civilian deaths (very conservative)
90 Daily attacks by insurgents in November, 2005. In June, 2005: 8.
8 per cent of Iraqi children suffering acute malnutrition
47 percent of Iraqis who never have enough electricity
70 percent of Iraqis who have sewage systems that rarely work
67 percent of Iraqis who feel less secure because of occupation
82 percent of Iraqis who are “strongly opposed” to the presence of coalition troops
0 WMDs

lancetwmdstatisticswariraq

Last week, a group of seven House Democrats wrote a letter to President Bush that accused the Pentagon of “under-reporting casualties in Iraq by only reporting non-fatal casualties incurred in combat.”

Current Pentagon casualty reports state 2,390 service members have died from the operations In Iraq and Afghanistan with over 16,000 wounded. Salon, however, has published details of the October Veteran Affairs report which show that 119,246 now off-duty services members who fought in Iraq or Afghanistan are receiving health care from Veteran Affairs. From Salon:

Presumably, some of those health problems are unrelated to the war. But the statistics seem to show that a lot of those health problems are war-related. For example, nearly 37,000 have mental disorders, including nearly 16,000 who have been diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder. Over 46,000 veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan receiving benefits from the V.A. have musculoskeletal problems. These are all veterans who within the last four years were considered by the military to be mentally and physically fit enough to fight.

iraqcasualty reportafghanistanpentagonbush

Is this how we support our troops?

From 10News:

A local family said fallen soldiers and Marines deserve better and that one would think our war heroes are being transported with dignity, care and respect. It said one would think upon arrival in their hometowns they are greeted with honor. But unfortunately, the family said that is just not the case.

Dead heroes are supposed to come home with their coffins draped with the American flag — greeted by a color guard.

But in reality, many are arriving as freight on commercial airliners — stuffed in the belly of a plane with suitcases and other cargo.

John Holley and his wife, Stacey, were stunned when they found out the body of their only child, Matthew, who died in Iraq last month, would be arriving at Lindbergh Field as freight.

marinesbushtroopssupport our troopsiraq

…of Americans want a timetable for troop withdrawal. That is just one of a series of questions about the Iraq war found in the latest CBS/NYT poll. Here are a list of other interesting numbers from their survey:

HAS THE BUSH ADMIN. EXPLAINED U.S. GOALS IN IRAQ?

Yes: 35%
No: 61%

DOES GEORGE W. BUSH HAVE A PLAN FOR VICTORY IN IRAQ?

Yes: 25%
No: 68%

DOES GEORGE W. BUSH HAVE A PLAN FOR BRINGING TROOPS HOME?

Yes: 25%
No: 70%

WHY DID BUSH ADMIN. DECIDE TO GO TO WAR?

U.S. Oil interests: 17%
Fight terrorism: 15%
Finish what his father started: 13%
To depose Saddam Hussein: 10%
Find/stop WMDs: 9%
Because of 9/11: 8%
Protect U.S. generally: 4%
Promote democracy in Mideast: 2%
Cheney/Rumsfeld wanted to: 2%

bushgeorge bushiraqpolltimetable

16-year-old Zach Rubio was suspended from his Kansas high school for speaking Spanish. When one student asked him in Spanish to borrow a dollar, Zach responded with ‘No problema.’ For that response, he was ordered to leave school.

From the WaPo:

Most of the time, 16-year-old Zach Rubio converses in clear, unaccented American teen-speak, a form of English in which the three most common words are “like,” “whatever” and “totally.” But Zach is also fluent in his dad’s native language, Spanish — and that’s what got him suspended from school.

“It was, like, totally not in the classroom,” the high school junior said, recalling the infraction. “We were in the, like, hall or whatever, on restroom break. This kid I know, he’s like, ‘Me prestas un dolar?’ [‘Will you lend me a dollar?’] Well, he asked in Spanish; it just seemed natural to answer that way. So I’m like, ‘No problema.’ ”

But that conversation turned out to be a big problem for the staff at the Endeavor Alternative School, a small public high school in an ethnically mixed blue-collar neighborhood. A teacher who overheard the two boys sent Zach to the office, where Principal Jennifer Watts ordered him to call his father and leave the school.

The suspension was later overturned by the school district which stated speaking a foreign language is not grounds for dismissal, but it frightens me to think that we as Americans are so afraid of what we do not know that we will even kick a teenager out of school for speaking in a language that we might not understand.

zach rubiorubiospanishfear