January 23, 2006

REID: NO ONE STANDS ABOVE THE LAW

Washington, DC – Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid released the following statement on the president’s continued refusal to come clean with the American people about domestic spying:

“We will stop at nothing to hunt down and defeat the terrorists and we will do that by holding firm to our deepest values of democracy and liberty. That is why Americans of all backgrounds and political parties are concerned about the NSA’s domestic spying program. I am eager for the Bush administration to level with the American people and participate fully and openly in upcoming Congressional hearings. We can be strong and operate under the rule of law. These are not mutually exclusive principles – they are the principles upon which our nation was founded.”

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PRESIDENT BUSH ONCE AGAIN FAILED TO LEVEL WITH THE AMERICAN PEOPLE

Today, Bush glossed over his active promotion of pre-war “intelligence.” Bush: “The world thought Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. It wasn't just me or my administration. My predecessor thought he had weapons of mass destruction. And there's a logical reason why. The data showed that he would likely have weapons of mass destruction. And he had used them.” [1/23/06]

But Bush played a key role in selling America on bad intelligence. For example: “It [Iraq] possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons.” [Bush, Cincinnati speech, 10/7/02]

Ø “America must not ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof—the smoking gun—that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.” (President Bush, Speech in Cincinnati, Ohio, 10/7/02)

Bush said today that the surveillance program hasn’t intercepted calls within the U.S. “These are not phone calls within the United States. This is a phone call of an Al Qaida, known Al Qaida suspect, making a phone call into the United States.” [1/23/06]

But, Bush’s spying program has reportedly intercepted entirely domestic communications. “A surveillance program approved by President Bush to conduct eavesdropping without warrants has captured what are purely domestic communications in some cases, despite a requirement by the White House that one end of the intercepted conversations take place on foreign soil, officials say.” [New York Times, 12/21/05]

Bush today said that the Supreme Court’s decision in Hamdi supported his Administration’s legal claim: “Recently, there was a Supreme Court case called the [Hamdi v. Rumsfeld]. It ruled -- the authorization for the use of military force passed by the Congress in 2001 -- in other words, the Congress passed this piece of legislation, and the court ruled, the Supreme Court ruled it that it gave the president additional authority to use what it called the fundamental incidents of waging war against Al Qaida. I'm not a lawyer, but I can tell you what it means: It means Congress gave me the authority to use necessary force to protect the American people, but it didn't prescribe the tactics. It said, "Mr. President, you've got the power to protect us, but we're not going to tell you how." [1/23/06]

But, 14 legal scholars wrote to Congress and disputed the argument that the Hamdi case supports the Bush Administration’s spying program. The scholars wrote that, “the DOJ's reliance upon Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 542 U.S. 507 (2004), to support its reading of the AUMF, . . .is misplaced. A plurality of the Court in Hamdi held that the AUMF authorized military detention of enemy combatants captured on the battlefield abroad as a "fundamental incident of waging war." Id. at 519. The plurality expressly limited this holding to individuals who were "part of or supporting forces hostile to the United States or coalition partners in Afghanistan and who engaged in an armed conflict against the United States there." Id. at 516 (emphasis added). It is one thing, however, to say that foreign battlefield capture of enemy combatants is an incident of waging war that Congress intended to authorize. It is another matter entirely to treat unchecked warrantless domestic spying as included in that authorization, especially where an existing statute specifies that other laws are the "exclusive means" by which electronic surveillance may be conducted and provides that even a declaration of war authorizes such spying only for a fifteen-day emergency period.” [New York Review of Books, 2/9/06]

Ø Justice O’Connor: ''A state of war is not a blank check for the president when it comes to the rights of the nation's citizens.” “In a 2004 case, Bush cited both his authority as commander in chief and the congressional authorization to support his claim that US citizens could be imprisoned without a trial if they were suspected to be part of a terrorist network. But the court rejected Bush's assertion, ruling that the detainees were entitled to a fair hearing. ‘A state of war is not a blank check for the president when it comes to the rights of the nation's citizens,’ wrote Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.” [Boston Globe, 12/19/05]

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