A round-up on “listening in”

George Will asks, Why Didn’t He Ask Congress?

Gonzales answered that question yesterday, not that anyone in the press was listening in:

In his news conference yesterday, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales addressed this.

Question: If FISA didn’t work, why didn’t you seek a new statute that allowed something like this legally?

Gonzales: … We’ve had discussions with members of Congress, certain members of Congress, about whether or not we could get an amendment to FISA, and we were advised that that was not likely to be — that was not something we could likely get, certainly not without jeopardizing the existence of the program, and therefore, killing the program. And that — and so the decision was made that because we felt that the authorities were there, that we should continue moving forward with this program.

Byron York reminds us that Clinton Claimed Authority to Order No-Warrant Searches and asks if no one remembers that.

In response, Clifford May quotes Jamie Gorelick, the erector of walls between the CIA and FBI:

Gorelick 2005: “The issue here is this: If you’re John McCain and you just got Congress to agree to limits on interrogation techniques, why would you think that limits anything if the executive branch can ignore can ignore it by asserting its inherent authority?”- Jamie Gorelick, former deputy attorney general under President Clinton, in today’s Washington Post, p. A10.

Gorelick: 1994 “The Department of Justice believes, and the case law supports, that the president has inherent authority to conduct warrantless physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes and that the President may, as has been done, delegate this authority to the Attorney General.

“It is important to understand, that the rules and methodology for criminal searches are inconsistent with the collection of foreign intelligence and would unduly frustrate the president in carrying out his foreign intelligence responsibilities.” – Jamie Gorelick testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee on July 14, 1994, as quoted by Byron today elsewhere on NRO.

May says: Gorelick is making a simple point: The rules are different when there is a Democrat in the White House. What about that don’t you understand?

Hmmmm…The ever-disgraceful Jay Rockefeller releases his CYA letter, which proves that the WH did talk to congress, after all. The press, I am sure, will be more interested in that Rockefeller letter than it ever was in this Rockefeller memo

The WSJ looks at Why the founders gave more power to the president in security matters.

Barbara Boxer asks if Bush has committed an impeachable offense…but she asks that question almost every day, as do John Kerry and Nancy Pelosi

Michelle Malkin has the indispensable round-up.

Read Vanderleun

The left is still not serious.