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amulI've been spending most of the day reading up on the wiretapping thing. As near as I can tell, and this is after about five solid hours of reading news articles and interviews, the argument goes something like this:
The Law: You cannot wiretap a US citizen without a written court order.
Nixon: Well, that's only for the FBI. I hereby empower a new branch of government to do the exact same thing as the old branches, but without all those messy legal complications.
The Law: Nice try, but you still can't tap a citizen's phone without an expressly written warrant stating who, why, when, and for how long.
Reagan: Well, what if I try to buy you off?
The Law: Then I'm just going to have to nominate a subcommittee to watch both of us and make sure we don't become corrupt.
Clinton: But it'd be really nice if we could.
The Law: See, there's this little thing called "due process." We kind of founded an entire country based on the fact that we didn't have it before.
George W: Fuck that noise. I'm just going to write a law that says I can.
The Law: You can't do that. You're not the Legislative Branch.
George W: ....and then I'm going to create another FBI-like group to watch over the FBI and the NSA and do all the things that my shiny new law lets them do.
The Law: No, you don't understand. You can't do that. That's an impeachable offense. It says so, right here.
George W: Nonsense, you get impeached for blowjobs, not crimes against the country. Hey, guys, look! I made a law!
Telecoms: Ooooooh. Pretty.
Pardon me if that version seems a little biased to you.
The Law: You cannot wiretap a US citizen without a written court order.
Nixon: Well, that's only for the FBI. I hereby empower a new branch of government to do the exact same thing as the old branches, but without all those messy legal complications.
The Law: Nice try, but you still can't tap a citizen's phone without an expressly written warrant stating who, why, when, and for how long.
Reagan: Well, what if I try to buy you off?
The Law: Then I'm just going to have to nominate a subcommittee to watch both of us and make sure we don't become corrupt.
Clinton: But it'd be really nice if we could.
The Law: See, there's this little thing called "due process." We kind of founded an entire country based on the fact that we didn't have it before.
George W: Fuck that noise. I'm just going to write a law that says I can.
The Law: You can't do that. You're not the Legislative Branch.
George W: ....and then I'm going to create another FBI-like group to watch over the FBI and the NSA and do all the things that my shiny new law lets them do.
The Law: No, you don't understand. You can't do that. That's an impeachable offense. It says so, right here.
George W: Nonsense, you get impeached for blowjobs, not crimes against the country. Hey, guys, look! I made a law!
Telecoms: Ooooooh. Pretty.
Pardon me if that version seems a little biased to you.
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no subject
Date: 7 Feb 2006 14:22 (UTC)You forgot the part where 'The Law' says "unless you ask us nicely afterwards, and we say it's ok" in the first bit.
And Carter, etc.
no subject
Date: 7 Feb 2006 20:21 (UTC)no subject
Date: 8 Feb 2006 03:54 (UTC)