Last updated: February 21, 2008 - 5:39am
BUSH IS NOT ABOVE THE LAW
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: James Bamford]
Last August, you may recall, a federal judge found that the president of the United States broke the law, committed a serious felony and violated the Constitution. The ruling was the result of a suit brought against the National Security Agency by the American Civil Liberties Union. It was a response to revelations by this newspaper in December 2005 that the agency had been monitoring the phone calls and e-mail messages of Americans for more than four years without first obtaining warrants from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, as required by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Laws are broken, the federal government investigates, and the individuals involved -- even if they’re presidents -- are tried and, if found guilty, punished. That is the way it is supposed to work under our system of government. But not this time. To allow a president to break the law and commit a felony for more than five years without even a formal independent investigation would be the ultimate subversion of the Constitution and the rule of law. As Judge Taylor warned in her decision, “There are no hereditary kings in America.â€
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/31/opinion/31bamford.html
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See also --
* Surveillance case to pit strong views
The U.S. argues that the ACLU challenge of Bush's domestic wiretap program is moot.
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-spying31jan31,1,2357339.story?coll=la-news-a_section
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