Dear Orrin Hatch (letter number 4,254, part 2)
I so want to just say to Senator Hatch: “Gosh Heck Darnit! I can’t read the news without stumbling accross a new scandal every day. How can you question the idea of impeachment?.”
But alas, opening Orrin’s eyes like that would be a miracle. I’d have a better chance of being raptured up to heaven with Jerry Fallwell, Ted Haggard and 40 virgins…So I will continue my futile attempt at reason where I left off 2 days ago…
CONTINUED FROM PART 1, posted May 17:
Second, there have been blatant violations of the FISA law. The President has admitted on several occassions that he repeatedly authorized wiretaps, without obtaining a warrant, of American citizens engaged in international calls.
In a December 2005 letter to Congress, the Justice Department acknowledged that the President’s October 2001 eavesdropping order did not comply with “the ‘procedures’ of” the law that has regulated domestic espionage since 1978.
The FISA law explicitly requires court approval for such wiretaps and sets up a special procedure for obtaining it. Violation of the law is a felony, with no exceptions:
“A person is guilty of an offense if he intentionally— (1) engages in electronic surveillance under color of law except as authorized by statute.”
I have written to you at least three times regarding the warrantless wiretapping program. Again, with all due respect, I appreciate your responses but I have heard nothing to dissuade me of the likelihood of illegality, or at least abuse.
All the arguments I have heard from the administration and it’s enablers amount to a claim that George Bush has the right to break the law, a stance directly contradicting Article II of the Constitution, mandating that the President “shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed . . . “
All such arguments were considered (and put to rest) by A 2006 report from the Congressional Research Service which concluded that such arguments clashed with existing law and hinged on weak legal grounds.
The authors wrote:
“It appears unlikely that a court would hold that Congress has expressly or impliedly authorized the NSA electronic surveillance operations here.” The administration’s legal justification “does not seem to be . . . well-grounded.”
This view was confirmed later in 2006, when a Federal Judge ruled that the program was unconstitutional and ordered an immediate halt to it.
He declared that the secret NSA program “Violates the Separation of Powers doctrine, the Administrative Procedures Act, the First and Fourth Amendments to the United States Constitution, the FISA and Title III.”