Britney Spears doesn't really appear in this article, I just put her
name in the Subject line because it's way more interesting that way.
impeachable, impeachable, impeachable, yadda yadda yadda.
we don't need at this stinking legal nitpicking.
All we need to do is ask ourselves WWSD - what would superman do?
Would he tap the phone lines of every single American, and catch the
bad guys and leave the good guys alone?
Of course he would.
So lets get back to American Idol and Extreme Home Makeover and stop
worrying about the government like Talking Heads said!
Right on!
May 15, 2006
General Hayden's Constitutional Sedition
Rewriting the Fourth Amendment
By DAVE LINDORFF
Bush's nominee for head of the CIA, Gen. Michael Hayden, at a press
conference, offered an interpretation of the Fourth Amendment to the
Constitution that removes the requirement of "probable cause" from
that important guarantee of freedom.
Asked by Jonathan Landay of Knight-Ridder about the Fourth Amendment's
standard of "probable cause" for issuance of a warrant for a police
search, Gen. Hayden disputed the standard.
"No, actually -- the Fourth Amendment actually protects all of us
against unreasonable search and seizure." Hayden said, trying to
correct Landay.
"But it does say probable" Landay tried to interject.
"No, the amendment says unreasonable search and seizure," snapped Hayden.
Now the problem here is that the General, who was running the National
Security Agency as it has been operating a secret program, just
disclosed by USA Today, that monitors the phone calling records of
virtually all phone customers of AT&T, Bell South and Verizon, is
selectively quoting from the Fourth Amendment.
In fact, what the Fourth Amendment says is:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses,
papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall
not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause,
supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the
place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
The trick here is that under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
(FISA), the NSA is required to obtain a court warrant for any domestic
surveillance. What Bush has done is to authorize secret monitoring of
Americans communications without a warrant. At the same time, once he
was caught in the act, both Bush and Gen. Hayden have claimed that
they are following the same strict guidelines as if they were going to
court for a warrant.
Clearly, however, the standard for a warrant, as laid out by the
Founding Fathers, is "probably cause," not the much looser
"reasonable" that Hayden asserted to Landay at the press conference.
We Americans, and the members of Congress who are being asked to
consider Hayden's fitness to serve as CIA director, need to challenge
this spook's sleight of hand.
Clearly there is no "probable cause" for monitoring all the phone
records of the entire customer base of three of the nation's largest
phone service providers.
That's why Hayden tried so hard to deny that the standard for
monitoring people's communications is "probable cause."
The president and his subordinates have been found out violating the
Constitution in a serious way.
If this is not an impeachable act, I don't know what is.
Dave Lindorff is the author of Killing Time: an Investigation into the
Death Row Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal. His new book of CounterPunch
columns titled "This Can't be Happening!" is published by Common
Courage Press. Lindorff's new book, "The Case for Impeachment",
co-authored by Barbara Olshansky, is due out May 1.
He can be reached at: dlindorff@yahoo.com
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