More subpoenas - Leahy's got Nadler's back

all i have to say is this...

NO MORE SUBPOENAS WITHOUT ENFORCEMENT...!

"The warrantless wiretapping program has operated for over five years outside of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and without the approval of the FISA Court. The Committee has continued to ask for the legal justification for this sweeping and secret program, and has continually been rebuffed by inadequate and at times, misleading, responses from this Justice Department," said Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, in a statement sent to RAW STORY. "The information we have requested has been specific to the legal justification for this program and is firmly within the Committee’s oversight jurisdiction."

[...]

In a hearing Thursday afternoon at the House Judiciary Committee, a Justice Department official refused to turn over President Bush's legal justification for the warrantless spying program.

"Those [Office of Legal Counsel opinions] reflect the internal confidential legal advice of the executive branch," said Steven G. Bradbury, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel. "We are citing the confidentiality interests that the executive branch has in internal confidential deliberative advice of the executive branch."

The program is operated by the National Security Agency and legally certified by the Justice Department.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), who chairs the subcommittee on constitutional issues and is investigating the program, slammed the Bush White House's actions in warrantless eavesdropping.

"We rejected monarchy in this country more than 200 years ago...This President appears to have forgotten that fact," he said in his opening statement. "Not only has he asserted the right to go around the FISA Court and the Wiretap Act, but he has actually done so."

Nadler went further in an earlier interview with Talking Points Memo's Josh Marshall.

"This entire warrantless wiretapping is illegal and the President and Attorney General are engaged in a criminal conspiracy. I mean, to me this is worse than Watergate," he said in the video interview.

(click here to watch...)

< sigh > let's get this constitutional crisis party started, fercryinoutloud...

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Yet another stage from which to ignite the constitutional crisis

i posted yesterday on jerry nadler's subcommittee hearing on the issue of warrantless domestic spying... i neglected to mention that it could provide yet another launchpad for the constitutional crisis - IF nadler doesn't wuss out like his colleagues seem to be doing...

Senior House Democrats threatened Thursday to issue subpoenas to obtain secret legal opinions and other documents from the Justice Department related to the National Security Agency’s domestic wiretapping program.

If the Democrats take that step, it would mark the most aggressive action yet by Congress in its oversight of the wiretapping program and could set the stage for a constitutional showdown over the separation of powers.

let's get on with it, ferchrissake...

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The House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution swings into action

NOW, we're talkin'... here nadler questions steven bradbury, principal deputy assistant attorney general office of legal counsel about warrantless domestic wiretapping and starts to zero in on big-time...

Congressman Jerrold Nadler (NY-08), Chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, today held a hearing titled, "Oversight Hearing on the Constitutional Limitations on Domestic Surveillance," to examine the National Security Agency’s warrantless wiretapping program and the Administration’s proposals for expanding the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The hearing, the first examination of the issue by the House this Congress, is part of a broader series of hearings called, "The Constitution in Crisis: The State of Civil Liberties in America."

"The time has come to void the blank check the White House has enjoyed for the last six years," said Rep. Nadler. "Today’s hearing will examine the legal reasoning behind the Administration’s warrantless wiretapping program that operated without judicial check for years and the recent decision to place it under the ‘approval’ of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Let me be clear: We are not seeking the blueprints to this program – no one wants to expose sources and methods in a public forum. But I do expect honest and forthright answers concerning the legal justifications for the Administration’s actions."

Nadler questions Steven G. Bradbury, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Office of Legal Counsel U. S. Department of Justice.

nadler isn't cutting bradbury any slack... he's going right after the aumf and the lack of legal constitutional basis for the program... give it a look...

thanks to empty wheel at the next hurrah, who offers this concluding comment...

But at least, from the looks of things, we now have someone focusing on where the real abuse of power all starts, with Vice President Cheney.

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Real - not John McCain - straight talk

congressman patrick murphy...

The President's current course is not resolute, it is reckless.

That is why I will vote to send a message to our President that staying the course is no longer an option.

[...]

You know, a few blocks away from this great chamber, when you walk in the snow, is the Vietnam Memorial, where half of the soldiers listed on that wall died after America's leaders knew our strategy would not work.

It was immoral then and it would be immoral now to engage in the same delusion.

congressman jerry nadler...

Enough with the lies, and the deceit and the evasions! Enough with the useless bloodshed.

[...]

Yes, the blindness of the Administration is largely to blame for starting the civil war in Iraq, but we cannot end it. Only the Iraqis can settle their civil war. We can only make it worse, and waste our blood and treasure pointlessly.

now, if they will only be listened to...

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