Bush: Surveillance Program Legal and Essential

President George Bush is at the heart of a media and political storm since the revelation that he authorized warrantless monitoring of communications between people in the U.S. and people overseas suspected to have ties to Islamist terror. Today, Bush defended the program.

President Bush offered a vigorous and detailed defense of his previously secret electronic-surveillance program today, calling it a legal and essential tool in the battle against terrorism and saying that whoever disclosed it had committed a “shameful act.”

Mr. Bush said the surveillance would continue, that it was being conducted under appropriate safeguards and that Congress had been kept informed about it. He rejected any suggestion that the surveillance program was symptomatic of unchecked power in the presidency.

[…]

Surveillance dominated Mr. Bush’s hourlong news conference at the White House, and Mr. Bush said he fully understood the concerns of some lawmakers that civil liberties might be infringed upon. But those concerns are simply not justified, the president said.

“Leaders in the United States Congress have been briefed more than a dozen times on this program,” Mr. Bush said. “And it has been effective in disrupting the enemy while safeguarding our personal liberties. This program has targeted those with known links to Al Qaeda.”

The program, which Mr. Bush authorized the National Security Agency to carry out, is consistent both with Article II of the Constitution, which outlines presidential authority and responsibility, and the laws of the United States, he said, and is reviewed every 45 days or so to prevent abuses.

Mr. Bush said he had determined early on that he was on sound footing. “Do I have the legal authority to do this?” he asked rhetorically. “And the answer is, absolutely.”

So, according to Bush, congressional leaders knew of the program. That, of course, is no reason for the Democrats not to on the attack.

Democrats quickly rejected the president’s rationale. “Where does he find in the Constitution the authority to tap the wires and the phones of American citizens without any court oversight?” Senator Carl Levin of Michigan said at a Capitol news conference.

Sen. Levin is quite right; I’ve searched my own personal copy of the Constitution and I find no such authority. In fact, I find not mention at all of wires or telephones.

Jeff Goldstein at Protein Wisdom points his readers to a couple of interesting postings from other bloggers on the matter before he puts in his two cents.

As I’ve maintained all along, the President went through legal channels and was counseled as to the legality of his authorization of the NSA domestic surveillance, which means his good faith shouldn’t be questioned. And so at best, one can argue that the legality of the program is in dispute—but that the President was forthcoming about it and that he followed the proper procedures for legal review. How that is an “impeachable offense,” as Barbar [sic] Boxer and John Dean maintain, is a question best left to the progressive Democrats to explain.

But what interests me most is Phares argument (via Yoo, et al) that the authority is dependent upon whether or not we believe the President to be acting under war time conditions. Clearly, Usama bin Laden and al Qaeda declared war on the US. And so the question then becomes, are we actively at war?

As I noted previously, that the Dems don’t feel like we’re actually at war doesn’t mean we aren’t.

As this will continue to play out, and it will play out for quite a while as we’ve already seen time and time again the sickening but tenacious behaviour of the media and Democrats when they think they smell Bush administration blood in the water, one can only anticipate the twisting arguments to come on constitutionality, legality, authority and need. I feel that, in the end, two things are certain: first, should they be doing their job (HA!), the media should demand an investigation into the identities of those involved in the leaking of the program (don’t hold your breath); and second, the effectiveness of the program has been greatly impaired or ended. Should the program be stopped, the terrorists can only feel more secure in their communications from within the U.S. Should the program continue, the terrorists have been tipped off that a portion of their communication capabilities is no longer safe.

Net result no matter the course of the story: the ability of our government to defend the safety of Americans has been damaged, by choice and by our own citizenry.