Is Bush spying on Democrats? - Democratic Underground

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Sun Aug-20-06 07:07 PM
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Is Bush spying on Democrats?

I've made a couple of attempts to equate the president's wiretapping crimes to the Watergate scandal that caused the demise of Nixon and noone took the bait. So, third times being the charm, I'm trying one more time.

First some commentary:

Senator Diane Feinstein of California, a leading Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, expressed support for the goals of the NSA program, while applauding the ruling. "I was briefed on the operational details of the NSA domestic surveillance program and believe that, with certain small changes, FISA can accommodate the program," she said. Yet she criticized Bush for using "brinkmanship" in his insistence on secrecy. "This court ruling upholds the basic principle that even the President is not outside the law and that he has exceeded his constitutional authority by implementing this warrantless domestic surveillance program," Feinstein said.

James Bamford, a respected author of books on the NSA and a plaintiff in the suit, called Taylor's ruling "very significant, because what you have here is a massive eavesdropping operation, the largest one in history. And it's a criminal statute that the President has violated," with jail terms dictated for violations. "Nobody's talking about impeachment," Bamford added, "but if you had opposite parties in Congress, you'd have a situation, I think, very much like Watergate."

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1228714,00.html

My reason for wanting to discuss this is because Nixon was brought down by authorizing the bugging of the DNC office at the Watergate. From my point of view, what Bush has done is exponentially worse.

Ok, nevermind that the NSA may be listening to my daughter talk about her latest crush and what so-and-so wore to school today. And, yes, wiretapping is an effective way to check on whether or not suspicious activity is taking place on the telephone. FISA was enacted to protect the American public from eavesdropping by federal officials and warrants for wiretapping are very easy to obtain from the FISA court. However, Bush has ignored FISA and decided that he would operate the wiretapping operation on his own autority. He is blatantly violating the founding principal of Constitutional free speech and privacy. He has shredded his Oath of Office and committed crimes of high treason against the United States. We already know all of this.

But by continuing to conduct this illegal wiretapping despite Judge Anna Diggs Taylor's ruling has left the door wide open for Bush's NSA henchman to gather intelligence on Democrats in an effort to subvert Democratic Party success in the mid-term elections, essentially committing the same "high crimes and misdemeanors" committed by Nixon. They are almost assuredly already doing this.

Where are our modern-day Woodward and Bernstein?