Under FISA, Bush broke wiretapping law

By Earl J. Prignitz

I was deeply troubled when President Bush thumbed his nose at our treaty obligations under the United Nations Charter and Geneva Conventions. Torture scandals and violations of U.S. criminal laws at the highest levels of our government were even more troubling. These concerns were compounded by growing evidence the president deliberately misled our country into war with Iraq. Disclosures of the PNAC records and Downing Street memos leave little doubt this was the case.

The last straw came in revelations that Bush directed the wiretapping of hundreds, possibly thousands, of Americans, in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Act (FISA) — arguing that as Commander-in-Chief, he had the right in the interests of national security to override our laws.

FISA was enacted in 1978 to prevent unauthorized wiretaps. Congress explicitly intended FISA to strike a balance between legitimate requirements of national security and the need both to protect against presidential abuses and safeguard personal privacy. Congress recognized the need for emergency action: the president was given power to start a wiretap without a warrant if court permission was obtained within three days.

If the president is allowed to break the wiretapping law on his own say-so, then a president can break any other law on his own say-so — a formula for dictatorship. This isn’t a theoretical danger: Bush recently claimed the right to violate the McCain amendment banning torture and degrading treatment of detainees.

These misdeeds constitute grounds for impeachment. A president who maintains he is above the law — and repeatedly violates the law — commits high crimes and misdemeanors. The framers of our Constitution feared executive power run amok and provided the remedy of impeachment. With a Republican House, this is unlikely to happen without tremendous demand from the American people. Or we can change the makeup of Congress in 2006.