Legality, Shmegality

Last night, while writing about the second NSA telephone-related program to come to light, I couldn't find this link to the USAToday story which brought it to everyone's attention.

Now that I'm correcting that, I want to highlight a couple of passages:

The NSA told Qwest that other government agencies, including the FBI, CIA and DEA, also might have access to the database, the sources said. As a matter of practice, the NSA regularly shares its information — known as "product" in intelligence circles — with other intelligence groups. Even so, Qwest's lawyers were troubled by the expansiveness of the NSA request, the sources said.

Remember this, when they tell us that the justification and use of this database is solely to combat terrorism.

But here's the kicker, for anyone who claims that the program is legal:

Unable to get comfortable with what NSA was proposing, Qwest's lawyers asked NSA to take its proposal to the FISA court. According to the sources, the agency refused.

The NSA's explanation did little to satisfy Qwest's lawyers. "They told (Qwest) they didn't want to do that because FISA might not agree with them," one person recalled. For similar reasons, this person said, NSA rejected Qwest's suggestion of getting a letter of authorization from the U.S. attorney general's office. A second person confirmed this version of events.

As I said in the earlier article, this means that the NSA, under the direction of the President, feels that when the court which specifically has jurisdiction over whether a program is legal or not may not find in their favor, that the proper course of action is simply not to ask.

They knew that the program might not be legal, so they skipped over asking the FISA court, or even President Bush's own Attorney General, then John Ashcroft, and in so doing, ENSURED that the program was not legal.

Keep all of this in mind, the next time the Republican spin machine talks in dismissive and ridiculing terms about Democratic proposals to investigate, censure or even impeach President Bush. These are high crimes which rise to, and possibly even above, those which got Richard Nixon almost impeached, and certainly more odeous and damaging to the nation than a little on-the-side sex with an intern. Republicans do not have the high moral ground here, no matter how they try to spin it. If impeachment proceedings can be brought against a sitting President over a personal failing not affecting his job, and one which none of the actual victims of his actions have chosen to file suit about or even speak ill of publicly, they can (and should) most certainly be brought against a President who increasingly feels that the powers of the Legislative and Juciciary branches are subservient to his own.

Liam.