Republican Speaks Up, Leading Others to Challenge Wiretaps - New York Times

Republican Speaks Up, Leading Others to Challenge Wiretaps - New York Times

"WASHINGTON, Feb. 10 — When Representative Heather A. Wilson broke ranks with President Bush on Tuesday to declare her "serious concerns" about domestic eavesdropping, she gave voice to what some fellow Republicans were thinking, if not saying. Now they are speaking up — and growing louder."

Better late than never. There are reasoned people on the Republican side of the aisle that are seeing the fundamental problems present in the way the Bush administration is grabbing power, manipulating the intent and letter of the law, and the breach of inherent, inalienable rights guaranteed by the Constitution.

"In interviews over several days, Congressional Republicans have expressed growing doubts about the National Security Agency program to intercept international communications inside the United States without court warrants. A growing number of Republicans say the program appears to violate the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the 1978 law that created a court to oversee such surveillance, and are calling for revamping the FISA law."

There is a foundational problem that congress has to tackle: it is too slow to react and update laws in light of emerging technologies. There is very little done in the way of reviewing existing laws and assessing whether these laws are overly broad, vague, too narrow, too loosely defined, or out of touch with the technology advances.

What I propose is that we fund a program that pulls together resources from law schools where students, faculty advisors and community members review laws that are already on the books and reports to a central project headquarters where these laws need revisions, clarifications, repeals or updating. The Bush administration, under the lead effort of Attorney General Gonzalez, has claimed that the conflicts and various application of existing laws, opened the door for the executive branch to claim authority for domestic surveillance, warrantless surveillance, and other powers not specifically delineated to the executive branch by Constitution and/or statute. It is clear that there is a need for a review of the existing laws to assure that such conflicting laws and interpretations do not continue.

The program could allow for such groups to form in regions of each state, headed by a central state committee that assigned projects to the regional committees. The major assignements could be handed out by the national headquarters. Cooperation from legal programs and organizations could be recruited, including state and local chapters of the ACLU, the Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF), the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), Cornell University's Law Institute, Stanfiord Law And Technology Association (SLATA), the Urban League, NAACP, the ABA (local, state and national), Alliance for Justice, Association of Trial Lawyers of America (ATLA), Christian Law Association, National Association of Criminal Lawyers, National Association of Women Judges, American Law Institute, Association of Law Schools, etc.

The entire organization needs to be as far removed from political agendas and ideologies as possible, with no efforts to determine anything regarding "judicial advocacy" or intent. The focus of the entire program would be to examine all federal laws to hunt down conflicts, identify weaknesses, strengthen the language and effectiveness of the laws, and clarify the language of the laws to assure that the intent of the legislative branch and the Constitution are left intact.

"Ms. Wilson and at least six other Republican lawmakers are openly skeptical about Mr. Bush's assertion that he has the inherent authority to order the wiretaps and that Congress gave him the power to do so when it authorized him to use military force after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.... The White House, in a turnabout, briefed the full House and Senate Intelligence Committee on the program this week, after Ms. Wilson, chairwoman of the subcommittee that oversees the N.S.A., had called for a full-scale Congressional investigation. But some Republicans say that is not enough."

These Republicans are quite correct... it is not enough. It is high time for the constitutional crisis to come to the forefront and that impeachment proceedings begin. The violation of the Constitution in the form of over-reaching grabs for executive power in violation of Article II of the Constitution, unprecedented use of executive power (power, not authority or just action) to implement surveillance programs, and breaching the First, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth and Tenth Amendments of the Bill of Rights is cause for impeachment. We the people need to call for impeachment NOW!