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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: geode00 who wrote (198412)	8/21/2006 5:52:48 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

The war against Saddam is over. That doesn't mean that the situation is settled or that there is no violent and difficult problem to deal with. what about spying without a warrant is legal? Spying has not traditionally required a warrant. Why is this administration IGNORING the law and why is that not ILLEGAL? If the constitution grants power to the executive, than it can reasonably be argued that any law denying that power is itself illegal. Perhaps this issue should have been battled out to a conclusion in the courts long ago, but it was not. Successive presidents have mostly complied with FISA while maintaining that they have no requirement to do so. The US Supreme Court could directly rule on that requirement but many times where there is a battle over powers between the legislature and the executive, the courts stay out of it. Since the war is over, by your definition of Saddam being on trial, then Bush isn't a wartime president. The war against Saddam is over. That doesn't mean there isn't another war in Iraq. There is also fighting in Afghanistan, and the war against Islamofacist terrorism. More importantly its far from clear that the presidents powers as commander in chief require an official war. The exact limits of the commander in chief powers have never been fully laid out by a USSC decision. That would mean every President could declare war on something and claim 'wartime' powers. If there is no war, than there is no war powers, presidential statements not withstanding. Whether any actual war is needed is an open question. Whether a declaration of war, or just a authorization to use force, or even just any armed conflict against any sort of foreign power is needed, is itself something that hasn't been settled. Bush's argument that as a 'wartime president' he gets to expand powers AT WILL and WITHOUT OVERSIGHT and apparently WITHOUT END is utter nonsense That argument is nonsense, but its also a straw man. Bush's argument is that he already has those powers and commander and chief or through the other powers the constitution grants to the president. The argument isn't that he can expand the powers, but that there is no need to expand them for him to carry out the controversial surveillance activities.