George W Bush Made Retroactive NSA 'Fix' After Hospital Room Showdown

circletimessquare writes: New details have emerged about the 2004 conflict between George W. Bush and his Attorney General, John Ashcroft, who was hospitalized when he forcefully disagreed with the president's authorization of the NSA's sweeping new collection powers after 9/11. The New York Times has discovered that the conflict was about a retroactive alteration of the President's wording on the legal theory by which the NSA is allowed to siphon up metadata on all Americans, not just certain targets or classes of targets, such as suspected terrorists. 'Mr. Bush, for the first time, explicitly said that his authorizations were "displacing" specific federal statutes, including the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and criminal wiretapping laws... the president had "made an interpretation of law concerning his authorities" and that the Justice Department could not act in contradiction of Mr. Bush's determinations.' The president faced a severe backlash from the Justice Department, including a threat of mass resignation.

Comments

A discussion of constitutional limits of power?

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

A discussion of constitutional limits of power ten years ago? How quaint. In 2015 we pretty much expect the president to do whatever he/she wants without regard to law of any kind.

Re:A discussion of constitutional limits of power?

[Archangel Michael]

There is no 10th Amendment. "Commerce" clause overrules everything.

Re:A discussion of constitutional limits of power?

[sycodon]

Regarding the Commerce Clause.

To paraphrase the fictional character, Dr. Alan Grant, "Tyranny Finds a Way."

Re:A discussion of constitutional limits of power?

[bugs2squash]

I would have said the opposite - I like the idea of each state having substantial differences per the will of the locals. As you say, the travel difficulties of the 18th century are largely eradicated now, people can move to the state they wish to live in fairly easily. The fact that, generally, people tend not to migrate to more up-market areas from within the US is, I think, the best indication that dropping the border restrictions around the world would not result in simply everyone in the world moving to Beverly Hills or wherever all the money is nowadays.

Re:A discussion of constitutional limits of power?

[tsotha]

I personally kind of like the idea that law would be uniform from state to state.

Not me. Regions have different cultures, different geography, different levels of wealth. That means they like to do things differently. A national approach means one-size-fits-all, which is never going to be as efficient.

The 55 mph federal speed limit is a perfect example. It may seem reasonable to people who live in hilly places that get bad weather, but if you live in Nevada, say, or Nebraska it's just a dumb idea.

Re:And that means...

[tripleevenfall]

"The DOJ promises to thoroughly investigate its boss and find no wrongdoing."

Re:Hypocrisy

[tripleevenfall]

When someone we don't like does an evil, it's because they are evil. When someone we do like does an evil, it's okay, because they have goodness in their hearts.

Wow...

[Grog6]

So, Bush actually went full Gestapo, and the Justice Department and Ashcroft Backed it Down a bit?

That's fucking amazing, really. I'm sure this is Bullshit, but I'm not sure which parts, or how much.

Since Cheney isn't implicated as the originator of the Full Gestapo move, I'd be more willing to bet He's the one now trying to throw Bush under a bus for some reason.

I dunno, but, like Obama found out: You can't vote out the Gestapo.

Once they're here, it takes lives to go back.

Re:Wow...

[Anonymous Coward]

So, Bush actually went full Gestapo, and the Justice Department and Ashcroft Backed it Down a bit?

Pretty much, yeah. John "No boobs on the statue of Lady Justice" Ashcroft, and even James "No secure crypto for anybody" Comey, for all their faults, still believe(d) in the rule of law.

When it comes to eliminating the rule of law by neutralizing both the legislative and judicial branches in favor of the executive, the same names always come up - Yoo and Addington - as the real powers behind the throne. Were they working for President Cheney, or did it go one level deeper than that -- they were merely Cheney's keepers (in the B5:Shadows sense of the word) whose job it was to whisper the right words into the ears of the powerful, and working constantly to find ways to legalize what was previously illegal? I'm not one for conspiracy theories, and there's insufficient data to speculate about who the real power behind the throne is/was/will be. We don't know and we'll probably never know.

The most interesting revelation is that it made the NSA/Snowden testimony, in which Clapper and Hayden tried to argue that getting all the metadata but not looking at it somehow qualified as not having the metadata in the first place... now makes a lot more sense, from a legalistic point of view. Their bosses really did manage to make, in a twist of Orwellian blackwhite/doublethink, that "obtaining and retaining" was not the same thing as "acquiring." I kinda feel sorry for those goons during the Snowden hearings. They weren't technically lying, and they really couldn't explain that distinction without committing crimes themselves.

Now, for better or worse, we know the legalistic reasoning behind the distinction. Thank you, Edward Snowden.

Re:Wow...

[Rainbow Nerds]

I don't think this is nonsense, and it's actually been reported before. See this Bill Moyers transcript for another, much older, source. Here are a couple more sources from 2007: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/15/AR2007051500864.html and http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/16/AR2007081601358.html. Basically, the White House was so desperate to have DoJ authorization for the program, they visited a man in the hospital who was very ill, almost certainly very medicated, and in no condition to make decisions about the legality of domestic surveillance. It seems like they were trying to take advantage of Ashcroft's state and trick him into signing the papers. Notably, Alberto Gonzales, an attorney general later in the Bush administration, was among those visiting from the White House. Also, Ashcroft wasn't even the Attorney General at the time; because of his illness, he had transferred the power to Deputy Attorney General Jim Comey. Bush went around Comey to try to take advantage of a very ill man to try to get the surveillance authorized.

Re:Hypocrisy

[Archangel Michael]

One evil doesn't excuse another. But overlooking an evil because it is your kind of evil is the worst kind of evil.

Further, Obama has had six years to fix this "evil" and hasn't. And yet, nobody is blaming him for not doing anything about it ... because he is "your kind of evil" so you overlook it.

Re:Hypocrisy

[Nick]

Congratulations! It only took a few minutes before someone already brought the ACA into this.

Re:And that means...

[__aaclcg7560]

Really, anyone about to post condemnations of Bush should consider the fact that Your Hero as he same policies and have argued in court to keep them.

Never mind that President Obama implemented the Republican agenda — Middle East foreign policy, tax policy and healthcare policy — with the Progressives looking the other way. He's probably the best moderate conservative president since Ronald Reagan.

Re:Ashcroft hospitalized over NSA showdown?

[Rainbow Nerds]

There's no truth to that. Ashcroft had been hospitalized with acute pancreatitis. He had surgery the day before Bush and other White House staff members visited him. Bush didn't cause it, but it certainly says something about the legitimacy of the program when Ashcroft's authorization was sought while he was extremely ill and likely quite medicated.

PBS Frontline

[Tokolosh]

Will PBS re-make "Spying On The Home Front" in the light of subsequent revelations? The Ashcroft hospital incident is documented.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/...

It's still worth watching.

Re:Hypocrisy

[Archangel Michael]

How about "I hate Bush for creating this mess, and Obama for continuing it on his watch"

He's had six years in power and hasn't done shit. So he is equal to Bush, no better, no worse.

Re:Hypocrisy

[phantomfive]

And what if we don't like either of them?

Then don't post that because fanboys from both parties will mod you down.

Re:Hypocrisy

[rubycodez]

Obama has increased the violations of privacy started under Bush; he is worse

Actions speak louder than words...

[Xenographic]

It's funny.

Reading this just made me realize that Ashcroft took a stronger stand against spying than Obama has, if I judge only actions and not words.

Re:Hypocrisy

[quantaman]

When someone we don't like does an evil, it's because they are evil. When someone we do like does an evil, it's okay, because they have goodness in their hearts.

We tend to overlook the evil things done by people we like.

It doesn't mean every controversial thing done by someone we like is actually evil.

To the extent that Obama has "retroactively and unilaterally revising law passed by Congress" with the ACA he's done it to work around things that most here would recognize as bugs, ie words in the law that make the law do things we didn't actually want it to do.

The issue we're talking about with Bush wasn't a bug fix, he added new features to make the law things it was never intended to do.

Above the law

[dcollins117]

From TFS:

'Mr. Bush, for the first time, explicitly said that his authorizations were "displacing" specific federal statutes, including the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and criminal wiretapping laws... the president had "made an interpretation of law concerning his authorities"...

That's the heart of the issue right there. President Bush wrongly believed the threat of terrorism gave him authority to break constitutional law. It actually doesn't, but no one has thus far found a way to correct this mistake. It's absolutely stunning to me after 14 years. The Orwellian-named Patriot Act was supposed to be a temporary measure and yet it's still in place.

Re:Ashcroft hospitalized over NSA showdown?

[circletimessquare]

i'm the submitter

i wrote

was hospitalized when he forcefully disagreed with the president's authorization

i meant

was {in the hospital at the time} he forcefully disagreed with the president's authorization

i didn't mean

was hospitalized {as a consequence of the other time} he forcefully disagreed with the president's authorization

apologies, there was no bad intent, i just wrote the summary without being aware that my wording made it possible of someone finding a novel secondary meaning

fuck the english language

Re:Hypocrisy

[labnet]

Because behinds the scenes, it's the same people running the show.
Do you seriously think a Black Lawyer who had a small time civil rights practice can become president without being bought?
It cost 100's of millions in Americas corrupt political system to become president.

Re:Hypocrisy

[ChrisMaple]

The wording in Obamacare was deliberate. Parts were necessary to get it passed; it would not have passed without those "bugs" in place. Other parts were there to punish uncooperative states; that backfired on Obama.

Re:Hypocrisy

[fatwilbur]

One thing that amazes me about American politics is how they get caught up on certain issues forever, while a lot of other countries seem to just move on to newer problems after making a decision. Abortion is a good example - I could barely believe how Planned Parenthood funding was a core debate subject at the Republican leader debate (sad when that was the most entertaining TV on).

Just in the last year, I've added single payer health care to the list. We had some staff from a subsidiary in the US come up here for a few days (Canada), and how vehemently and confidently they would disparage a health care system clearly so much better than their own.. the cognitive dissonance against their better interest is staggering. Even typical extreme conservatives can't follow the logic of how a single payer can drastically reduce costs, nor understand how they're already funding social health care for the most expensive groups, the poor and elderly. Health care in the US is an ideological issue, and I don't get why.

Re:Hypocrisy

[ultranova]

Stealing from me to keep you alive incites my fury.

Which, in turn, makes you a villain in world's story... so why should anyone care?