Conservatives need "healthy skepticism"
Cato Institute
by Gene Healy and Timothy Lynch
06/07/06
The recent revelation that the National Security Agency has secretly been collecting phone-call data from millions of Americans comes on the heels of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' suggestion that the president might have 'inherent executive authority' to wiretap Americans' domestic calls without a warrant. That was the latest in a series of extraordinary constitutional claims the Bush administration has made during the war on terror. Among those claims: the authority to lock up American citizens on American soil and hold them without charges or trial for the duration of the war on terror and the power to bypass validly enacted statutes that interfere with any tactics the president wants to pursue in the war on terror. Behind all of these claims lies a common principle: Presidential power must be left unrestrained, checked only by the good faith of the executive and the remote possibility of impeachment. What's surprising is that even as the president has been hemorrhaging conservative support on issues such as immigration and spending, conservatives continue to back the president's dubious constitutional claims...
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6419
Informant: Thomas L. Knapp
by Gene Healy and Timothy Lynch
06/07/06
The recent revelation that the National Security Agency has secretly been collecting phone-call data from millions of Americans comes on the heels of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' suggestion that the president might have 'inherent executive authority' to wiretap Americans' domestic calls without a warrant. That was the latest in a series of extraordinary constitutional claims the Bush administration has made during the war on terror. Among those claims: the authority to lock up American citizens on American soil and hold them without charges or trial for the duration of the war on terror and the power to bypass validly enacted statutes that interfere with any tactics the president wants to pursue in the war on terror. Behind all of these claims lies a common principle: Presidential power must be left unrestrained, checked only by the good faith of the executive and the remote possibility of impeachment. What's surprising is that even as the president has been hemorrhaging conservative support on issues such as immigration and spending, conservatives continue to back the president's dubious constitutional claims...
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6419
Informant: Thomas L. Knapp
rudkla - 7. Jun, 17:59
