President Reverses Himself on Warrantless Wiretapping

Well it seems that el Presidente and his high and mighty Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez have finally decided to reverse course and request warrants for domestic surveillance. This has been 5 years in the making, and I think the executive branch believes if they just turn around and say now we need a warrant, then all the previous indiscretions and improprieties will be simply swept under the rug. The US Senate today, gave me some assurances that this is not going to happen, according the the Washington Post:

U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales fended off lawmakers on Thursday who demanded to know why the administration took more than five years to obtain court approval of its war-time domestic spying.

"I somewhat take issue ... with (Republican) Senator Arlen Specter's innuendo that this is something we could have pulled off the shelf and done in a matter of days or weeks," Gonzales told the Senate Judiciary Committee. "This is a very complicated application. We worked on it a long time."

Gonzales announced an abrupt end to the warrantless electronic surveillance program on Wednesday, just two weeks after Democrats took control of the U.S. Congress, promising investigations and legislation to bring the program in line with the law.

However Senator Spector appears to be correct. It does seems that they are just changing course because the Democrats are now in power. Bush and Gonzalez are putting this executive privilege, which they fought very hard to protect just a few short weeks ago, back on the shelf until another president choose to take it off the shelf and flaunt its power of the legislative branch sometime in the future. However, as the NY Times explains, the original damage done remains:

The president’s decision hardly ends this constitutional crisis. Among other
things, the public needs to know why Mr. Bush broke the law for more than five
years and what should be done to ensure there will be no more abuses of the
wiretap statute.

Let me say that again, because this is the crux of the problem and it is important to remember "THE PRESIDENT'S DECISION HARDLY ENDS THIS CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS" The Senate has the responsibility to investigate why the President chose to break the law in the first place, then, and more importantly why he had decided to follow the law now. The law is something that no person, no president, no judge, no mayor, no citizen can single-handily decide to ignore one day, then adhere to the next.

Although I have always strongly disagreed with the actions of the president on this front (and most fronts for that matter), the fact remains that he has all of a sudden turned, reversed, whatever you want to call in a 180 degree maneuver, which seems incomprehensible since this is the same stubborn mule headed person who refused to do anything besides walk arrow straight down the exact same path with nothing different for 6 years. So I am shocked and very skeptical of this about-face, and the real reasons behind this maneuver.

Andrew Sullivan wonders somewhat sarcastically if we are now in peril because it was so important before that the government have immediate access to records and apparently now they can wait for the appropriate judges approval to do so, which never seemed to be a burden in the first place. Lets face it, terrorists waited 8 years in between bombing the World Trade Center. They are in no hurry, they are very content to sit back and wait and watch, then spring at the right opportunity. To quote Sullivan directly:

The Bush administration claimed it could wiretap phones without a warrant because it was essential to national security. Now they think they can live with the FISA court. So are we now to believe that this seizure of executive power to spy on Americans without oversight was always optional? Are we now in grave danger? Or have we just learned - again! - not to trust a word these power-mongers say? More commentary here.

I say we have learned AGAIN not to trust anything All the Presidents Men have to say. They are nothing but snake oil salesman, and we the consumers of the snake oil are realizing, or have known all along that the snake oil they are selling are poison.

Here is more of the hearings from Consortium News via Carols Place for Peace:

In one of the most chilling public statements ever made by a U.S. Attorney
General, Alberto Gonzales questioned whether the U.S. Constitution grants habeas
corpus rights of a fair trial to every American.

Responding to questions from Sen. Arlen Specter at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Jan. 18, Gonzales argued that the Constitution doesn’t explicitly bestow habeas corpus rights; it merely says when the so-called Great Writ can be suspended.

“There is no expressed grant of habeas in the Constitution; there’s a prohibition against taking it away,” Gonzales said.

Gonzales’s remark left Specter, the committee’s ranking Republican, stammering.
“Wait a minute,” Specter interjected. “The Constitution says you can’t take it away except in case of rebellion or invasion. Doesn’t that mean you have the right of habeas corpus unless there’s a rebellion or invasion?”

Gonzales continued, “The Constitution doesn’t say every individual in the United States or citizen is hereby granted or assured the right of habeas corpus. It doesn’t say that. It simply says the right shall not be suspended” except in cases of rebellion or invasion.

“You may be treading on your interdiction of violating common sense,” Specter said.

Yes indeed a violation of common sense, and this man is supposed to be the highest level of law enforcement in the land. Is it just me or does Alberto Gonzalez remind you of John Mitchell? Bueller? Anyone?

Added 1/19/07 - At least the folks over at the Liberty Papers agree that the constitution has won this round.