Greetings forenacct,

Welcome to Boomer Women Speak and to our current thread/discussion. Here, you will find many women who believe as you do about the president. For the most part, this is a site of conservative Christians and republicans. There are also a smattering of us whose beliefs differ from the views held by our conservative sisters. This country thrives on these differences. I respect your right to agree or disagree and welcome your input. As Casey so aptly put it: "Consistently coming back to the point that the President broke a law is important. And so are having discussions with people who don't agree with us -- those who believe that the president should do everything he can (legal or illegal) to protect us. We need to heal this divide so we can get back to being the nation we truly are "with liberty and justice for ALL." We may not always agree, but as Voltaire and Patrick Henry said, “I may not agree with what you said, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

That is exactly what we are trying to protect, the right to voice our differences in a civil and productive manner and to address what we see as injustices and lies perpetrated by our government and specifically at this time the executive branch of the government.

We, therefore, welcome you to submit any substantiated views you have. Respectful discussion is vital to the healing that Casey is talking about and to the positive future of this country.

Returning now to the theme of this thread, I've come across another article of growing concern.

FCC net wiretapping rules irk even local governments
http://www.boingboing.net/2005/12/22/fcc_net_wiretapping_.html
Read it for yourself to see what you think.

Regarding posts made, in response to the comment:

quote:
"Previous administrations, as well as the court that oversees national security cases, agreed with President Bush's position that a president legally may authorize searches without warrants in pursuit of foreign intelligence."
Yesterday, Sen. John Murtha was interviewed by Wolf Blitzer and said that it has been "alleged" that previous administrations have resorted to Bush's tactics, but there's no documented evidence to indicate the allegations were true, and, additionally, he believes the allegations to be false. As for the court that oversees national security cases, I'm not sure what is meant. If the FISA court is meant, the statement is wrong - this is an item discussed in my last post:

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/12/20/wiretaps/index.html

quote:
Sen. Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat, discounted the administration's contention that the program was necessary to ensure a swifter response than the FISA court would allow.

"That's why our law allows a president to go right away and apply for those warrants retroactively within 72 hours," she told CNN.
Additionally Barbara Boxer stated:

quote:
"There's nothing in there that gave the president the authority to override the law," says Sen. Barbara Boxer (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif. She has asked four legal scholars if they believe Bush has admitted an "impeachable offense."
Regarding the statement:

quote:
Further, the Justice Department has acknowledged the right of to President to follow this action.
It isn't really clear if this refers to the court system or the attorney general.

If the courts, I haven't heard any final ruling on the legality of all this - though the resignation of one of the FISA judges yesterday seems to point in a definite direction, as does the following article:

Spy court to get secret briefing -- about secrets
http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/12/22/nsa.court/index.html


There are a few points in the article which refute the following statement:

quote:
Previous administrations, as well as the court that oversees national security cases, agreed with President Bush's position that a president legally may authorize searches without warrants in pursuit of foreign intelligence.
One, a logical deduction: if they were sure Bush's actions were legal, there would be no briefing, secret or otherwise.

Two - from the article:

quote:
The surveillance court, made up of 11 judges from across the nation, was created in 1978 by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The legislation mandates that intelligence agencies seeking to monitor domestic conversations must ask the court for a warrant.
Three:
quote:
The Bush administration argues the NSA program is exempt from that requirement.

Several FISA court judges are raising concerns about the program, according to The Washington Post, which first reported the briefing.
Those concerns include questions about whether the Bush administration has overreached its authority, and whether information that might have been gathered illegally was used to obtain warrants from the court, the newspaper said in Thursday's editions.
And four:

quote:
Many Democrats and civil rights advocates say the program is not lawful because it was not explicitly authorized by legislation.
As you can see, according to the experts, it has yet to be determined.

If, on the other hand, the reference is to the Attorney General's Office, Gonzales' statements of legality have already been discounted by many as possibly meaningless. Which is also acknowledged by the above - the courts wanting to hold an inquiry. Regarding any comments Gonzales would make about the eavesdropping, of course he's going to side with his boss. Everyone associated with President Bush, especially his appointees, will side with him - if they want to keep their jobs. To say that Gonzales endorses Bush's eavesdropping, is in the same category as police departments having the police department as their oversight committee. If I'm not mistaken, the Attorney General's Office is part of the executive branch of government. But regardless of who the reference is to, it is still widely believed in the circles that would know, that Bush's actions are indeed illegal . . . that's why they all want a congressional inquiry held . . . that's why everyone's complaining about what President Bush is doing.

As for the September 11 reference, on any given work day, there are upwards of 10 million people in the NY City area, at least a million of whom were in close proximity to the Trade Center. And millions more (all over the country) who actually saw/watched the attacks and destruction as it was happening. (My husband who was raised in New York and worked in Manhattan for a number of years was getting ready to go fishing the morning of September 11th. The only part of the devastating attack that he didn't see himself "live" was when the first plane actually hit the north tower - though he did see it in rerun after a reporter submitted his taping of it to the media. He turned on the news about five minutes after the first hit and watched all the rest of it - well past the second tower's collapsing . . . as well as seeing and hearing the news cast of the Pentagon and Pennsylvania crashes. It hit him as hard as if he was standing right there.) Those that weren't glued to their sets, or actual participants, were later flooded with all the events over and over and over again - a true saturation bombing of the senses. Yes, we all feel for the loss, for those building belonged to all Americans, and all Americans were attacked that day.

As for the president taking a strong stand against the terrorists and his actions having a crippling effect on their destructive efforts, I would ask the question, when you consider all the attacks all over the world since then, did he really hinder anything? Or did he escalate a bad situation into a worse one? Is he a savior or was he just crying wolf to distract us from what conjecture seems to be pointing at - selling out the country for himself and his cohort's gain!

[ December 23, 2005, 02:02 AM: Message edited by: Vi ]