Cheney Emerges From His Undisclosed Location To Defend Bush Spying

Along with our commentary, an we are not in very good moods...

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT

From the DNC:

Washington, DC - Yesterday, during an interview with Jim Lehrer of the Newshour, Vice President Dick Cheney followed Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' misleading and groundless assertions about President Bush's domestic warrantless wiretapping program. Cheney repeated the White House talking point that, "we believe firmly that ... we have all the legal authority we need with respect to the NSA program." [Newshour with Jim Lehrer, 2/7/06]

You assured us over and over that we were minutes away from being irradiated, crispy critters at the hands of Osama and Saddam, who, according to your frightened, twisted little mind, are old buddies. What you believe, firmly or otherwise, is of no concern to any sane person. You are either a liar or a fool!

Yet, according to numerous legal scholars, the Administration's rationale for spying on calls, including those involving American citizens, is deeply flawed. According to the Washington Post, while "Bush administration officials have taken great pains to emphasize that the effort involves only international telephone calls and e-mails," many scholars and even Republican lawmakers have asked, "Why stop there? Why not intercept domestic calls, as well?" There are also questions about why the Bush Administration argues that the FISA process works well for some cases, but not those instances where the secret NSA program is utilized, even "though the process differs little, if at all." Critics of the President's secret program contend that such reasoning is "confusing, and question why the statute is 'cumbersome and burdensome,' in Gonzales's words, only for cases involving international calls." [Washington Post, 2/8/06]

The administration had a choice of going to congress and asking that the FISA law be amended to better fit the hideous situation in which we find ourselves. Not one member of Congress would have objected to members of Al Qaeda being tapped, whether they were in the U.S. or on the Moon. Only the more foolish of our citizens would have objected to that. (The question of why members of Al Qaeda in the U.S. have not been arrested springs to mind) Why just listen to their phone calls and read their email, if these people are so dangerous that we have to shred the constitution because of them, why not just arrest them?

"Vice President Cheney's emergence from his undisclosed location to defend an unpopular Bush Administration policy is not new, and neither is his parroting of the White House's unpersuasive defense of their possibly illegal domestic wiretapping program," said Democratic National Committee Communications Director Karen Finney. "Democrats believe that we should spy on terrorists and that we must win the war on terror. We also believe that when the President breaks the law, it makes it harder to catch our enemies and its hurts our democracy."

....and I believe that Cheney is as full of it as a Christmas Turkey and that they are not spying on Al Qaeda, at least not exclusively.

Who was Cheney spying on before 9/11; early in 2001, for example?

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT

LINK