There May Yet Be Hope

[rev_tobias]

Torture proponent Alberto Gonzalez, the US Attorney General probably best known for his strong belief that the President is above the law, gave a speech to law students at Georgetown today, once again declaring how Emperor George I. was well within his God-given rights when he ordered illegal wiretaps on US citizens

Comments

[dreagoddess]

I find it hysterical how everyone who describes this automatically says, "Well, he broke the law. Because he ordered illegal wiretaps!" No one ever says "he broke the law by wiretapping" or "he ordered illegal wiretaps". You really don't need both. (There actually is a hell of a lot of room for debate on whether they're actually illegal or not. Ill-advised I'll grant you, and definitely the product of Congress acting first and thinking later on granting of power, but there's definitely an argument on both sides.)

And law schools have been notoriously liberal for decades, dear. They see the light once they get out of the ivory tower and into the real world. ;)

[stone_]

Like the old adage says,
"If a man is not a liberal when he is 20, he has no heart. If he is not a conservative when he is 40, he has no brain" - Churchill

[rev_tobias]

I don't think so. I'm not a bleeding heart leftie, but even rapidly approaching 40 I don't see myself as conservative. Guess I could call myself a centrist - I agree or disagree with issues on both sides.

[rev_tobias]

I believe I didn't fall into that grammatical trap ;)

As for the debate, AFAIK Bush is claiming war powers even though the USA have not declared war on another country (just bombed the fuck out of and invaded them). The "war on terror" doesn't count.

[dreagoddess]

Bush is claiming that when Congress authorized him to do pretty much anything to stop terrorists after 9/11, it was broad enough to include warrantless wiretapping. (So not "war powers" in general, but the specific act of Congress.) Which isn't that far-off an argument, considering Clinton was arguing he was justified at very similar acts even without that blanket grant of powers. As has pretty much every US President since WWII at least.

[rev_tobias]

We have now reached the point where my knowledge of the US legal system is no longer sufficient. I was under the impression the carte blanche he cajoled out of Congress after 9/11 only concerned Afghanistan and was to be of limited duration?

[dreagoddess]

Limited duration, yes, but we're still under it AFAIK and it wasn't limited to Afghanistan. It was limited to "terrorism".

[rev_tobias]

But that's no limit at all. "Terrorism" is not an enemy. "Terrorism" is a technique enemies (or allies) may use. :-/

[dreagoddess]

As I said, it was an example of very bad law-writing, which is done more often than we like to think.

[rev_tobias]

True.
It's nice to see we found something to agree on in a Bush-related topic ;)