Bush/NSA Spying Scandal- Bottom line.

Did I post enough yesterday for you?

I think I covered every aspect of this scandal (more so than all the cable news channels I watched tonight which breezed through it in around four minutes so they could debate whether Bono truly deserved the Time cover), but I wanted to do a sort of 'final word' before I went to bed with visions of an MTA strike dancing in my head.

President Bush's defense on the program came on two fronts... the first being from Attorney General Gonzales, who gave the more Orwellian defense. Gonzales stated the legal justification comes from the authorization Congress gave Bush after 9/11 to respond military to the terrorists (the Afghanistan war declaration). He stated, in effect, that it was implied that President Bush could do this by virtue of being at war. Boil it down and they are saying that a nation at war gives the President unlimited power. Think about it long and hard, people. I mean didn't I just see that in the last 'Star Wars' movie? How'd that turn out for them?

The second front was a press conference by President Bush himself. Bush said these type of wiretaps are legal and that he has the authority as commander-in-chief to do what's required to protect us. He ignores the fact that no one questioned that. Of course they are legal... when you go through the system! Here is the process in a nutshell: Bush-FISA-NSA. Bush goes to FISA, gets the warrants, and then authorizes the NSA to begin the surveillance. The chain that was occurring was: Bush-NSA. The President was bypassing FISA and the warrants and is therefore in violation of the Constitution of the United States, a crime he pretty much admitted to. That's the scandal here and Bush's address did not give a real answer as to this behavior.

Regarding the President's 'need for speed' excuse/lie that "we must be able to act fast and to detect these conversations", the FISA system accounts for this scenario. As pointed out by David Sirota and others, "the law currently allows Bush to order surveillance as fast as he possibly can, and allows surveillance operations to take place immediately. The only thing that is required is a court-issued warrant that can be ussed retroactively within 72 hours of when the operation started". So why then didn't that occur? The President did not say nor was the issue addressed.

So, despite all the talk yesterday, we still don't know the real reason the President violated the law and bypassed FISA. Maybe the real answer is too scary. So no, the scandal isn't that President is working to protect us... it's something much scarier. The President bypassed the system when it was absolutely unnecessary to do so and he did it for unknown reasons. My feelings on this matter remain clear...

Impeach now, please.

[PS- Also see this animated translation/breakdown of Bush's speech]