Bush calls for retroactive legalization of illegal wiretapping

by Adam Thomas

US President George W. Bush today asked for more powers to wiretap without warrants, in effect retroactively legalizing the unlawful National Security Agency wiretapping, which the President ordered in 2002.

The NSA wiretapping order is illegal under the terms of the The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, but Bush administration, led by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, has proposed a Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 that would make President’s actions retroactively legal.

In his weekly radio, address Bush told Americans that he needs these powers to stop terrorist network that struck America on September the 11th wants to strike US again.

“To stop them, our military, law enforcement, and intelligence professionals need the best possible information about who the terrorists are, where they are, and what they are planning,” the President said. “One of the most important ways we can gather that information is by monitoring terrorist communications.”

Bush claimed that the current statute is two old to be relevant and called for a “modernization” of the Act.

“Our intelligence community warns that under the current statute, we are missing a significant amount of foreign intelligence that we should be collecting to protect our country,” he said. “Congress needs to act immediately to pass this bill, so that our national security professionals can close intelligence gaps and provide critical warning time for our country.”

Civil rights groups including American Civil Liberties Union and Electronic Frontier Foundation have criticized President Bush’s statements claiming that he is using the word “modernize” to describe the removal of safeguards found in the FISA.

“It takes an enormous amount of hubris to ask for more power on the heels of revelations that the President tried to go around his own attorney general on his NSA domestic electronic eavesdropping program,” Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the Washington Legislative Office of the American Civil Liberties Union said. “The already-shaky legal ground on which this domestic spying program stood is crumbling beneath those who defend it.”

The group pointed out the hidden provision in the bill that grants total immunity against criminal and civil liability for the telecom companies’ participation in the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping program.

“It is unprecedented and undemocratic to give retroactive and sweeping immunity to an entire industry,” Fredrickson added. “Not to mention, giving blanket immunity before a full and public airing of the facts.”

ACLU called on the Congress to stand firm against the Executive Branch’s unconstitutional actions.

“This is not the time to hand even more power to an administration that has permitted the wholesale abuse of civil liberties; has denied the legislative branch’s constitutionally mandated oversight role and refused to hold the attorney general accountable for a series of conflicting claims that defy logic, the law and common sense,” Fredrickson said. “The only thing more outrageous than the administration’s call for even more unfettered power is a Congress that would consider giving it to them.”

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