FEINGOLD: Admin Defense For Illegal Wiretapping Is Just Plain Gone

[kpete]

The Administration's Defense for Illegal Wiretapping is Just Plain Gone
by Senator Russ Feingold
Tue Jul 18, 2006

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As many legal thinkers, and some in this community, have pointed out, the Hamdan decision was a rebuke to an Administration that thinks it can make up its own laws. And this decision has ramifications far beyond the issue of detainees. For one thing, Hamdan completely undercuts the Administration's already weak legal argument in defense of its warrantless wiretapping program.


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Yesterday I wrote a letter to the President and Attorney General Gonzales urging them to reconsider the Administration's position about the legality of the NSA's warrantless wiretapping based on the Hamdan decision. I specifically urged them to consider the implications of Hamdan when they conduct their periodic reauthorization of the wiretapping program, which DOJ has indicated occurs approximately every 45 days.

The Administration's legal defense of its warrantless wiretapping program has always been threadbare, but with the Hamdan decision its argument isn't just threadbare any more - it's just plain gone.

Hamdan underscores how this Administration has played fast and loose with the Constitution and the law, and why the President should be censured for authorizing the illegal wiretapping program, for misleading the public both before and after it was revealed, and for failing to inform the appropriate members of Congress about it, as required by law. We have to demand that this Administration, and this President, protect our Constitution and our values as we protect our country. I am going to keep raising this issue - in fact, I plan on asking the Attorney General about it this morning when he comes before the Senate Judiciary Committee. So stay tuned and thanks to all of you for keeping the heat on this Administration to own up to its mistakes and abide by the rule of law.

more at:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/7/18/93819/1656

[rodeodance]

1. YEaH Russ

.....Hamdan underscores how this Administration has played fast and loose with the Constitution and the law, and why the President should be censured for authorizing the illegal wiretapping program, for misleading the public both before and after it was revealed, and for failing to inform the appropriate members of Congress about it, as required by law.