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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: stockman_scott who wrote (10814)	2/3/2006 6:22:53 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 541488

Bush might be wrong in his interpretation that the constitution doesn't grant him the power to perform surveillance on foreign enemies INCLUDING their interactions with Americans, but "might be wrong" is not the same thing as the interpretation being totally ridiculous. The president does have certain powers under the constitution. A law from congress can not abridge those powers. We have separate, relatively equal branches of government with checks on each other, not a pre-eminent congress. I'm not saying that Bush is right on this (or that he is wrong), but it is a complex question of the exact boundaries of the powers granted to the presidency by the constitution, not a simple slam dunk case where Bush is acting illegally. In addition to the constitutional issue there is the political issue. Bush might be acting within his authority constitutionally but may be doing something people don't like or don't think he should do. But the only real check on that is regular functioning of the political process. I suppose that even if Bush is operating within his constitutional authority that congress could vote to zero fund the specific activity they don't like (and perhaps don't think is legal). about whether the President could spy on Americans without a warrant. Spy on foreign enemies when they communicate with Americans is a little bit different than "spy on Americans without a warrant".