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Dec. 23rd, 2005 10:02 amSnoopgate continues, and one of ours grows a pair:
The Bush administration requested, and Congress rejected, war-making authority "in the United States" in negotiations over the joint resolution passed days after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, according to an opinion article by former Senate majority leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) in today's Washington Post.
Daschle's disclosure challenges a central legal argument offered by the White House in defense of the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping of U.S. citizens and permanent residents. It suggests that Congress refused explicitly to grant authority that the Bush administration now asserts is implicit in the resolution.
...
As drafted, and as finally passed, the resolution authorized the president "to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations or persons" who "planned, authorized, committed or aided" the Sept. 11 attacks.
"Literally minutes before the Senate cast its vote, the administration sought to add the words 'in the United States and' after 'appropriate force' in the agreed-upon text," Daschle wrote. "This last-minute change would have given the president broad authority to exercise expansive powers not just overseas -- where we all understood he wanted authority to act -- but right here in the United States, potentially against American citizens. I could see no justification for Congress to accede to this extraordinary request for additional authority. I refused."
Daschle wrote that Congress also rejected draft language from the White House that would have authorized the use of force to "deter and pre-empt any future acts of terrorism or aggression against the United States," not only against those responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks.
via Eschaton
Good on ya, Daschle! But this is downright terrifying:
Since October 2001, Bush has authorized 30 times - every 45 days - warrantless NSA domestic surveillance of what I have heard estimated of approximately 1,000 US persons a year. That would be 4,000 persons over the past four years, if I understand the shifting numbers offered correctly. But whatever it is. The Administration insisted again today that the only US persons being authorized to be spied on by Bush -- that he somehow didn't think he could get FISA warrants on -- are directly linked to Al Qaeda suspects or a related terrorist group. As Assistant Attorney General William E. Moschella wrote in a public letter (.pdf linked) to Senate and House Intelligence committee leaders today, "As described by the President, the NSA intercepts certain international communications into and out of the United States of people linked to al Qaeda or an affiliated terrorist organization."
This begs the question: how many people known to be "linked" to Al Qaeda has the administration let roam the streets of America since 9/11? I would guess the answer would be approaching zero.
On a somewhat unrelated note, I'd like to point everyone at True Christians™ don't do science by PZ Myers:
He's exactly right about one thing: all the people on his little enemies list say terrible things about religion. Speaking for just myself, I don't like it at all—I think it's a bad idea to afflict a society with an institution dedicated to opposing critical thinking, the acceptance of dogma, and belief in unsupported and frankly, ludicrous claims. I'm going to express my detestation often and without reservation here, as the others in that list have done in their own venues. So? Is this an opinion we are not allowed to have? Does it make us unfit to speak on science or philosophy? Is it more offensive than the frequently stated and rarely questioned Christian opinion that we unbelievers are damned to spend all of eternity suffering in agonizing torment? (I suspect that most sensible Christians respond to us saying "piffle on religion" with a weary "eh" and perhaps a little eye-rolling, just as most sensible atheists find the flaming ghost-life threats weird and ineffectual.)
[...]
Christians can practice methodological materialism all they want without damning themselves to hell. Even non-scientists do this all the time, when, for instance, they thump a melon at the grocery store to see if it's ripe, rather than praying to god to send them a sign. Christians who are scientists can also sequence a zebrafish gene and compare it to a human sequence in GenBank without committing blasphemy. Unless, that is, they happen to belong to some weird brain-dead sectish form of Christianity, I suppose.
[...]
Atheism and theism are properties completely orthogonal to anyone's ability to carry out the methods of science.
The Intelligent Design creationists are deliberately conflating two separate issues.
I highly recommend reading the rest, you won't be disappointed.
The Bush administration requested, and Congress rejected, war-making authority "in the United States" in negotiations over the joint resolution passed days after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, according to an opinion article by former Senate majority leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) in today's Washington Post.
Daschle's disclosure challenges a central legal argument offered by the White House in defense of the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping of U.S. citizens and permanent residents. It suggests that Congress refused explicitly to grant authority that the Bush administration now asserts is implicit in the resolution.
...
As drafted, and as finally passed, the resolution authorized the president "to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations or persons" who "planned, authorized, committed or aided" the Sept. 11 attacks.
"Literally minutes before the Senate cast its vote, the administration sought to add the words 'in the United States and' after 'appropriate force' in the agreed-upon text," Daschle wrote. "This last-minute change would have given the president broad authority to exercise expansive powers not just overseas -- where we all understood he wanted authority to act -- but right here in the United States, potentially against American citizens. I could see no justification for Congress to accede to this extraordinary request for additional authority. I refused."
Daschle wrote that Congress also rejected draft language from the White House that would have authorized the use of force to "deter and pre-empt any future acts of terrorism or aggression against the United States," not only against those responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks.
via Eschaton
Good on ya, Daschle! But this is downright terrifying:
Since October 2001, Bush has authorized 30 times - every 45 days - warrantless NSA domestic surveillance of what I have heard estimated of approximately 1,000 US persons a year. That would be 4,000 persons over the past four years, if I understand the shifting numbers offered correctly. But whatever it is. The Administration insisted again today that the only US persons being authorized to be spied on by Bush -- that he somehow didn't think he could get FISA warrants on -- are directly linked to Al Qaeda suspects or a related terrorist group. As Assistant Attorney General William E. Moschella wrote in a public letter (.pdf linked) to Senate and House Intelligence committee leaders today, "As described by the President, the NSA intercepts certain international communications into and out of the United States of people linked to al Qaeda or an affiliated terrorist organization."
This begs the question: how many people known to be "linked" to Al Qaeda has the administration let roam the streets of America since 9/11? I would guess the answer would be approaching zero.
On a somewhat unrelated note, I'd like to point everyone at True Christians™ don't do science by PZ Myers:
He's exactly right about one thing: all the people on his little enemies list say terrible things about religion. Speaking for just myself, I don't like it at all—I think it's a bad idea to afflict a society with an institution dedicated to opposing critical thinking, the acceptance of dogma, and belief in unsupported and frankly, ludicrous claims. I'm going to express my detestation often and without reservation here, as the others in that list have done in their own venues. So? Is this an opinion we are not allowed to have? Does it make us unfit to speak on science or philosophy? Is it more offensive than the frequently stated and rarely questioned Christian opinion that we unbelievers are damned to spend all of eternity suffering in agonizing torment? (I suspect that most sensible Christians respond to us saying "piffle on religion" with a weary "eh" and perhaps a little eye-rolling, just as most sensible atheists find the flaming ghost-life threats weird and ineffectual.)
[...]
Christians can practice methodological materialism all they want without damning themselves to hell. Even non-scientists do this all the time, when, for instance, they thump a melon at the grocery store to see if it's ripe, rather than praying to god to send them a sign. Christians who are scientists can also sequence a zebrafish gene and compare it to a human sequence in GenBank without committing blasphemy. Unless, that is, they happen to belong to some weird brain-dead sectish form of Christianity, I suppose.
[...]
Atheism and theism are properties completely orthogonal to anyone's ability to carry out the methods of science.
The Intelligent Design creationists are deliberately conflating two separate issues.
I highly recommend reading the rest, you won't be disappointed.
