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The more articles that appear like this in the news, the sooner we can get America back to being America again.

On Bush: It's Time to Say 'Enough'
by Marty Luster

As if the lies that took us to Iraq were not enough. As if the knowing use of bad intelligence wasn't enough. As if the ever- shifting justifications for this war were not enough. As if the use of torture by and at the behest of the United States was not enough. As if the disclosure of classified information to retaliate against a critic of the war policy was not enough. As if the shroud of secrecy that binds this administration was not enough. As if the squandering of hundreds of billions of dollars in support of this war at a time when we can't find the money to rebuild one of our great cities, when millions of us go without health care and when the federal government has reneged on its commitment to public education was not enough.

Now, after all that, now we have the disclosure that the president personally ordered and continues to order the interception of telephone and e-mail communications of thousands of U.S. citizens and residents on U.S. soil without search warrants, without court authorization of any sort and without any basis in the constitution or laws of this land.

Now we have had enough.

The president has defended his action in signing repeated executive orders directing the spying upon U.S. citizens by his National Security Agency on the ground that such activities are only used in cases were the subject has a “known link” to terrorist organizations abroad. However, he is silent when it comes to identifying the process for determining if a subject of eavesdropping is part of such link and he is infuriatingly vague when challenged on the legal and constitutional authority for those actions. He has assured us that his actions are both legal and protective of our civil liberties, but somehow many Americans, of all political parties, take little comfort in those assurances.

That discomfort is not only warranted by this president's history of deception, distortion and manipulation, it is compounded by the outright obfuscation of his fast-talking secretary of state. When asked on “Meet the Press” on Dec. 18 for the legal basis for the president's actions, Ms. Rice offered, in her usual glib and slick manner, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Based upon that response, one might expect to find in that legislation some clear directive that permits the president to spy upon U.S. citizens in the United States. Surely Attorney General Gonzales, and before him, Attorney General Ashcroft, as well as ace presidential counsel, former Supreme Court nominee Harriet Myers, studied FISA, or at least looked at it, before advising the president that he was free to look at our e-mails and listen to our telephone conversations without the inconvenience of applying for a court order permitting such intrusions. Sadly, it appears that that was not the case.

FISA was enacted in 1978 in reaction to the over-reaching of the federal government in spying on Americans during the Vietnam War. Its purpose was to erect a “wall' between criminal prosecution, on the one hand, and the collection of ‘foreign intelligence” on the other. The asserted reason for this distinction is that in criminal prosecutions the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against a search or seizure without a court ordered warrant controls, whereas, in non-criminal intelligence operations, the bounds of the Fourth Amendment are less clear. Instead of a warrant executed by the usual court having jurisdiction, FISA established a secret court to review the Attorney General's applications for authorization of electronic surveillance targeted at foreign intelligence information. These applications come nowhere close to the detailed and well-established standards for the issuance of search warrants (e.g., there is no requirement for a finding of “probable cause”), they are processed secretly and are sealed from public view.


This presidency has three more years to run. We cannot afford to wait that long for a change in leadership. We can no longer risk our values, our history and our liberty.

We have, finally, had enough.

It's time for Congress to begin proceedings under Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution to impeach and remove George W. Bush and his Vice President from office.