I'd Prefer a "Terrrorist Capturing Program"

There's a newly minted term for breaking the law needlessly and unnecessarily by wiretapping American citizens without a warrant. It's called the "Terrorist Surveillance Program." And the PR campaign is on:

The president told an audience at Kansas State University in Manhattan that the congressional resolution passed in the wake of the September 11 attacks that authorized the invasion of Afghanistan and other counterterrorism measures gave him the legal authority to initiate the program.

Bush also said he kept key members of Congress informed.

"You know, it's amazing that people say to me, 'Well, he was just breaking the law.' If I wanted to break the law, why was I briefing Congress?" Bush said, apparently referring to former Vice President Al Gore's accusation last week that he was "breaking the law" by authorizing the program.

I don't call sitting down a precious few Senators and Representatives, telling them "This is what we're doing, and don't breathe a word of it to anyone" a briefing. Leaning on the 2001 AUMF resolution as a legal basis has little legal standing, even in conservative circles. This is especially true if you read Tom Daschle's insider report that the White House ASKED for domestic force operations in the AUMF and was rebuffed. Why would they base the legality on a document that the Senate Majority Leader at the time specifically rejected from the document?

You can't break the law on account of being inarticulate. If the President and his staff explained why they needed this authorization, or why FISA was moving too slow for them, or why technology necessitated a change in the law, a Republican majority in Congress would have passed it, especially considering his approval ratings were in the 80s at the time. You can't just bypass Congress. That's what's at stake here.

And let's not forget that this White House was already having a hard enough time with legal surveillance:

The September 10 intercepts, details of which were provided to CNN on Wednesday, came from conversations in Arabic between individuals in Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia that U.S. officials believe were connected to al Qaeda. The intercepts, however, were not analyzed until September 12, the day after terrorist attacks on New York and Washington killed more than 3,000 people.

Congressional and other sources said that in one communication intercepted by the NSA, a person said, "The match begins tomorrow." In another intercept that same day, a different person said, "Tomorrow is zero hour." In both instances, the two people who said those words were in Afghanistan, speaking to others in Saudi Arabia.

This is all part of the Rovian plan to forcefully push the national security issue forward for the 2006 elections. I agree with John Kerry that 2006 is not 2002. I hope the Democrats have the stomach for this fight. It's going to be hard enough wading through the "fair and balanced" media muck to get that message out there. But it's amazingly simple: the President broke the law. He's still breaking the law. We'd like him to stop breaking the law.

And while he's at it, getting focused on catching Osama bin Laden would be nice.