Defiant Bush defends wiretapping powersJulian Borger and Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
Tuesday December 20, 2005The Guardian
George Bush claimed yesterday that he had the constitutional authority to order phone taps on US citizens without court approval, but denied he was seeking "unchecked power".
The president went on the offensive in a battle with Congress over the balance of power, arguing that bold executive action was needed to keep Americans safe. He scolded the Senate for failing to renew anti-terrorist legislation, the "patriot act", and fiercely defended his authorisation of a secret eavesdropping programme after the September 11 attacks.
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"As president and commander in chief, I have the constitutional responsibility and the constitutional authority to protect our country. Article 2 of the constitution gives me that responsibility and the authority necessary to fulfil it," he said.
He angrily rejected a suggestion that he was seeking "unchecked power".
"To say unchecked power basically is ascribing some kind of dictatorial position to the president, which I strongly reject," he told a White House press conference.
But Democrats in Congress alleged that the White House had used the September 11 attacks as a pretext for a stealthy accumulation of extraordinary powers. Senator Russ Feingold declared: "The president has stated a doctrine that he can just make up the law and create whatever other powers he wants on his own."
The clash came after Congress scored successes in its bid to rein in some executive powers commandeered by Mr Bush and the vice president, Dick Cheney, who were convinced the presidency had become too weak to lead the "war on terror". Congress demanded regular briefings on the progress of the war in Iraq; it overcame intense White House resistance to impose new controls on the treatment of detainees; and a bipartisan group of senators last week blocked the renewal of the patriot act on the grounds that the powers it gave the FBI violated civil liberties.
Yesterday, Mr Bush portrayed the Senate block on the anti-terrorism law as "playing politics" with national security. He said: "It is inexcusable to say to the American people ... we're going to be tough on terror but take away the very tools necessary to help fight these people." He was also unapologetic over the secret wiretapping programme, targeting foreign calls and emails made or received in the US, and said the leak of its existence to the New York Times was "shameful" as it made terrorists aware of the methods being used against them.
Outrage at the wiretaps focused on the bypassing by the White House of a secret court, established under the foreign intelligence surveillance act (Fisa), which normally approves such surveillance, even retroactively. Mr Bush said that while the court was used to authorise the monitoring of calls, the National Security Agency needed to act quickly to detect suspicious telephone and email conversations. Yesterday, General Michael Hayden, the deputy director of national intelligence, said the programme had detected and prevented attacks inside the US.
Gen Hayden told reporters: "Here the key is not so much persistence as it is agility. It's a quicker trigger. It's a subtly softer trigger."
Mr Bush said he had the power to order wiretaps not only from the constitution, which vests commander-in-chief responsibilities in the presidency, but also in Congress's vote in 2001 to authorise him to use force against the perpetrators of the September 11 terrorist attacks. Democrats denied that vote gave the White House any such authority and some legal experts questioned the strength of his argument.
"This is certainly not at the strength you would want to see to justify such a disturbing incursion on civil liberties," said Neil Richards, a law professor at Washington University in St Louis. "It is one thing to say that the authorisation of force amended all those statutes without saying so, and quite another thing to prove that."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1671093,00.html
