Obama administration defends Bush wiretaps

Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.

Obama voted for retroactive legalization of wiretaps and immunity for phone companies, so this is not much of a surprise. I guess the "defend the Constitution" part of the oath of office is optional now.
 
godless dave,

Too bad a President can't simply be impeached for failing to adhere to the Oath of Office -- A lot of bad Presidents could have been impeached, tried, and likely yanked out of Office for that one...


INRM
 
INRM said:
godless dave,

Too bad a President can't simply be impeached for failing to adhere to the Oath of Office
Click to expand...

Legally they can, but it would require Congresspeople with the courage of their convictions, of which there are at most two or three.
 
godless dave said:
Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.

Obama voted for retroactive legalization of wiretaps and immunity for phone companies, so this is not much of a surprise. I guess the "defend the Constitution" part of the oath of office is optional now.
Click to expand...
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review says the wiretaps were legal: Court Affirms Wiretapping Without Warrants.

eta: which makes the statement made in the SF Gate article "The suit followed President George W. Bush's acknowledgement in 2005 that he had secretly authorized the NSA in 2001 to monitor messages between U.S. residents and suspected foreign terrorists without seeking court approval, as required by a 1978 law" factually not true.
 
Last edited:
Upchurch said:
Even a broken clock is right twice a day, eh?

This story is disappointing, if true.
Click to expand...

Agreed. I was floored, and saddened, when I heard this on Olbermann last night. I hope Obama reconsiders...but I doubt he will.

TAM:)
 
I contend that Obama isn't the same old, but rather keeping horrible policies for different reasons. (I am not justifying this by the way, but attempting to explain it.) See there are many left-overs from the Bush white house in the Obama administration. I think Obama is afraid of upsetting the intelligence community and exposing people to prosecutions which will weaken his clout with these agencies. However, his explanation to the people just doesn't hold water. He likes to claim that under Bush it was bad because they were bad people, but now the good folks are in power. This is one promise broken by the Obama campaign, and it's a biggie.
 
I'll definitely be writing a letter complaining about Obama's position on this (as I have on his failure to keep his promise to undo the executive order allowing recipients of faith-based initiative money to practice discrimination in hiring).

Maybe it won't help, but at least I have the feeling with Obama that if he got enough letters like this, he might actually rethink his position. With Dubya, I knew there was no chance he was listening--not even to his own advisers.
 
This is at least mildly concerning.

There must be some way that they can better explain why disclosure of wiretapping practices would be so detrimental to national security at the very least.
 
Last edited:
Yes, we must demand that people be put on trial for actvities the court has ruled are legal!

After all, just because something is legal doesn't mean people shouldn't be charged, especially when they're people we don't like. Why should the law stand in the way of mob justice?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom