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How President Bush Broke the Law

16 December 2005 - gk - reactions

Just following up on how the NSA illegally spied on Americans , comes this lucid explanation by Hilzoy how President Bush broke the law:

This is against the law. I have put references to the relevant statute below the fold; the brief version is: the law forbids warrantless surveillance of US citizens, and it provides procedures to be followed in emergencies that do not leave enough time for federal agents to get a warrant. If the NY Times report is correct, the government did not follow these procedures. It therefore acted illegally.

Bush's order is arguably unconstitutional as well: it seems to violate the fourth amendment, and it certainly violates the requirement (Article II, sec. 3) that the President "shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed."

I am normally extremely wary of talking about impeachment. I think that impeachment is a trauma for the country, and that it should only be considered in extreme cases. Moreover, I think that the fact that Clinton was impeached raises the bar as far as impeaching Bush: two traumas in a row is really not good for the country, and even though my reluctance to go through a second impeachment benefits the very Republicans who needlessly inflicted the first on us, I don't care. It's bad for the country, and that matters most.

But I have a high bar, not a nonexistent one. And for a President to order violations of the law meets my criteria for impeachment. This is exactly what got Nixon in trouble: he ordered his subordinates to obstruct justice. To the extent that the two cases differ, the differences make what Bush did worse: after all, it's not as though warrants are hard to get, or the law makes no provision for emergencies. Bush could have followed the law had he wanted to. He chose to set it aside.

Also note that the President was relying on John Woo's justification for breaking the law.

Also note that Presidential Executive Orders cannot trump law.

Also note that Rep. George Miller (D-CA) is calling for a federal special counsel to investigate this breach of law.

Nixon, meet Bush. Bush Nixon.

Game, set, match. No wonder the Bush administration worked the refs for over a year, delaying the publication of this story.

Later
Read our follow up to this post.