California Conservative

NEW YORK – In a full-page advertisement in today’s New York Times, the American Civil Liberties Union intensified its call for a special counsel to be appointed to determine whether President George W. Bush violated federal wiretapping laws by authorizing illegal surveillance.

The ACLU said President Bush’s actions were a clear violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which was passed by Congress in response to revelations that former President Nixon was using “national security” claims to spy on American citizens he considered his “enemies.”

“President Nixon was not above the law and neither is President Bush,” said ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero. “President Bush cannot use a claim of seeking to preserve our nation to undermine the rules that serve as our foundation. The Attorney General, who may have been involved with the formulation of this policy, must appoint a special counsel to let justice be served.”

The advertisement, as well as a similar ACLU ad that ran last Thursday, was spurred by revelations earlier this month that Bush authorized the National Security Agency (NSA) to conduct electronic surveillance of people within the United States, including U.S. citizens, without a warrant.

The text of today’s advertisement compares the words of President Nixon and President Bush, both of whom denied allegations of illegal spying. Next to the image of Nixon, the advertisement says: “He lied to the American people and broke the law.” Below that is an image of President Bush, with the words, “So did he.”

The FISA wiretapping law made it a crime to intentionally engage in electronic surveillance without court approval. The president clearly violated the law when he authorized, and then repeatedly reauthorized, the NSA to spy on Americans without first obtaining a warrant, the ACLU said.

In a formal request sent last week to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, the ACLU called for the appointment of “an outside special counsel with the independence to investigate and prosecute any and all criminal acts committed by any member of the Executive Branch in the warrantless electronic surveillance of people in the United States over the past four years by the NSA,” noting that “such crimes are serious felonies and they need to be fully and independently investigated.”

It makes me sick. Groups like the the ACLU and CAIR wanting sensitive, classified information released is as irresponsible a position as I can think of. It would only lead to our enemies obtaining the information, and avoid the trap. Perhaps this is what the ACLU wants.

It isn’t what the vast amount of Americans want. Michelle Malkin points out the latest Rasmussen Reports.

Sixty-four percent (64%) of Americans believe the National Security Agency (NSA) should be allowed to intercept telephone conversations between terrorism suspects in other countries and people living in the United States. A Rasmussen Reports survey found that just 23% disagree.

Notice that the ACLU have already made up their mind that Bush is guilty? This is nothing but a political hit piece.

Via a commenter at Free Republic:

The problem is that groups such as the ACLU are hitting the airwaves and print media demanding an investigation into the Bush admin. Meanwhile Repubs are not demanding an investigation into WHO leaked this info. We need to get the message out loud and clear cause it doesn’t look like our Congress critters are going to. Sign the petition calling for an investigation into the national security leaks!

Others: Gateway Pundit

Cross-posted from Stop The ACLU

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 29th, 2005 at 11:29 am and is filed under ACLU, Law, Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.