Government Seeks Dismissal of Spy Suit

The Wired blog 27B Stroke 6 is carrying the news that the US has filed a motion to drop the case the ACLU won in lower court against the government's warrantless wiretapping program. The government's appeal of that ruling will be heard on Wednesday, January 31 in front of the Sixth Circuit court of appeals. The feds argue that the case is now moot because they are now obtaining warrants from the FISA court, and furthermore President Bush did not renew the warrantless program. Turns out there's a Supreme Court precedent saying that if you were doing something illegal, get taken to court, and then stop the illegal activity, you're not off the hook. The feds argue in their petition that this precedent does not apply to them. Here is the government's filing (PDF).

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Re:Power Company

[Doc Ruby]

You understand power, but you don't understand impeachment.

First, the president (and arguably, the VP) cannot be tried for anything while they're in power, except by impeachment, according to the Constitution. Who will violate that? No one.

Second, impeachment doesn't have to take long. Republicans impeached Clinton in a few weeks.

Third, impeachment doesn't have to lead to conviction to stop a criminal president. Nixon resigned rather than allow a trial to expose even more of his criminal enterprise and his criminal associates. His Republican Party turned against him to cut their losses for exactly that reason. Clinton's impeachment wasn't for any criminal enterprise that could be further endangered (the Whitewater investigation tried exactly that, and produced only a white lie on TV about a blowjob), but it did interfere with the political leverage Clinton had over the Republican Congress. Bush would be crippled for the rest of his term, if he didn't resign, even if acquitted by his 49 Republican senators. Unable to stop Congress from winding down the Iraq War, taking over the Afghanistan War, and otherwise fixing both foreign and domestic policy.

Impeaching Bush for the warrantless NSA wiretapping, lying us into Iraq War, discarding habeas corpus, torturing, and a laundry list of cronyism and other crimes isn't merely "political vengence". It's justice. It's the only way to stop a criminal president, as specified in the Constitution. Tyrants like Bush are exactly who impeachment is designed to stop.

If Congress doesn't impeach Bush, then what does a president have to do to get impeached? Is it only for breaking into the Watergate hotel during an election campaign? Is it only for lying about a blowjob? Can criminal presidents get away with literal (mass) murder, even if they don't have a Congressional majority?