It was revealed today that court-appointed White House resident George W. Bush has been violating the Fourth Amendment since 2002 by "authorizing" the National Security Administration (NSA) to wiretap phone lines in the United States without a court order, in direct violation of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America which specifically prohibits illegal (non-court ordered) search and seizure by the United States government.
Many in the NSA refused to carry out this blatantly illegal and unconstitutional order to "search for terrorists". The chief judge of the 11 on the FISA surveillance court abruptly quit. My hat goes off to these defenders of a basic tenet of the Bill of Rights, while our purported Commander-in-Chief breaks the oath of office. How is this abuse of power different from McCarthy's tyrannical search for "Communists" at every corner? Did we learn nothing from J Edgar Hoover's blatantly illegal activities? Or Nixon's?
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was developed specifically as a response to Nixon using the NSA to spy on the American people. It's role is to emphasize the constitutionally mandated check by the judicial system on the executive branch by creating a court to review each case of surveillance including wiretapping for approval or rejection.
This is not at all ironic when you consider that Cheney, a former Nixon administration official (along with Rumsfeld) placed himself on the short list for Vice President. His most recent comment demonstrates both his pining for the Nixon administration-era power grab mentality, while also implying as an ex-Nixon employee that illegal wiretaps were probably his idea: "Vice President Dick Cheney on Tuesday called for "strong and robust" presidential powers, saying executive authority has eroded since the Watergate and Vietnam eras."
