But Spector has also admitted:
    "There is an involved question here . . . as to whether the president's powers under Article 2, his inherent powers, supersede a statute."

    The Pennsylvania Republican said that if the FISA statute "is inconsistent with the Constitution, the Constitution governs and the constitutional powers predominate."


And, as Attorney General Gonzales has explained:

    After Sept. 11, Congress immediately confirmed the president's constitutional authority to "use all necessary and appropriate force" against those "those nations, organizations, or persons he determines" responsible for the attacks.

    The Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) gave the president the latitude to use a full complement of tools and tactics against our enemy. A majority of Supreme Court justices have concluded that the AUMF authorizes the president to use "fundamental and accepted" incidents of military force in our armed conflict with al Qaeda. The use of signals intelligence--intercepting enemy communications--is a fundamental incident of waging war.

    The president, as commander in chief, has asserted his authority to use sophisticated military drones to search for Osama bin Laden, to deploy our armed forces in combat zones, and to kill or capture al Qaeda operatives around the world. No one would dispute that the AUMF supports the president in each of these actions.

    It is, therefore, inconceivable that the AUMF does not also support the president's efforts to intercept the communications of our enemies. Any future al Qaeda attacks on the homeland are likely to be carried out, like Sept. 11, by operatives hiding among us. The NSA terrorist surveillance program is a military operation designed to detect them quickly. Efforts to identify the terrorists and their plans expeditiously while ensuring faithful adherence to the Constitution and our existing laws is precisely what America expects from the president.

    History is clear that signals intelligence is, to use the language of the Supreme Court, "a fundamental incident of waging war." President Wilson authorized the military to intercept all telegraph, telephone and cable communications into and out of the U.S. during World War I. The day after Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt authorized the interception of all communications traffic into and out of the U.S. These sweeping measures were seen as necessary and lawful during critical moments of past armed conflicts. So, too, are the more focused intercepts of al Qaeda during our current armed conflict, especially given the nature of the enemy we face.

    The AUMF is broad in scope, and understandably so; Congress could not have catalogued every possible aspect of military force it was endorsing. That's why the Supreme Court ruled in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld that the detention of enemy combatants--a fundamental incident of war-- was lawful, even though detention is not mentioned in the AUMF. The same argument holds true for the terrorist surveillance program. Nor was the president's authorization of the terrorist surveillance program in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. FISA bars persons from intentionally "engag[ing] . . . in electronic surveillance under color of law except as authorized by statute." The AUMF provides this statutory authorization for the terrorist surveillance program as an exception to FISA.

    Lastly, the terrorist surveillance program fully complies with the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures. Like sobriety checkpoints or border searches, this program involves "special needs" beyond routine law enforcement, an exception to the warrant requirement upheld by the Supreme Court as consistent with the Fourth Amendment.




Oh, and by the way:

Quote:

the G-man said:

You keep saying "bipartisan" as if the fact that a handful of republicans are joining the democratic chorus is the same as widespread republican support for your position.

Using that logic, because Joe Lieberman, a Democrat, supports Bush on the war, one could as easily say Bush has "bipartisan" support in congress.

Of course, that would be deceptive. Just as deceptive as your statement.



Again, why is when one or two republicans agree with a democrat, you call it "bipartisan," but when one or two democrats agree with Bush you don't?