Carter’s tiresome hypocrisy – UPDATED

Carter allowed surveillance in 1977.

The next day at Mrs. King’s high-profile funeral, Mr. Carter evoked a comparison to the Bush policy when referring to the “secret government wiretapping” of civil rights leader Martin Luther King.
But in 1977, Mr. Carter and his attorney general, Griffin B. Bell, authorized warrantless electronic surveillance used in the conviction of two men for spying on behalf of Vietnam.
The men, Truong Dinh Hung and Ronald Louis Humphrey, challenged their espionage convictions to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, which unanimously ruled that the warrantless searches did not violate the men’s rights.
In its opinion, the court said the executive branch has the “inherent authority” to wiretap enemies such as terror plotters and is excused from obtaining warrants when surveillance is “conducted ‘primarily’ for foreign intelligence reasons.”
That description, some Republicans say, perfectly fits the Bush administration’s program to monitor calls from terror-linked people to the U.S.

Funny old world, sometimes.

UPDATE: Ed Morrissey is on this as well and adds:
Not only does Jimmy Carter betray his hypocrisy here, but his Attorney General told Congress when it debated the FISA law in 1978 that FISA would not impede the president from exercising precisely this power under the Constitution. The Times also notes that Jamie Gorelick said much the same thing in 1994. In any case, the appellate court certainly agreed with both Bell and Carter in 1980, even after passage of FISA the year after the surveillance took place.

Gateway Pundit notes sadly that Carter is showing his sons how to be a dishonest, disingenuous candidate.

Welcome Captains Quarters readers – while you’re here please look around. Today we’re also talking about how President Bush helped create the African American Museum that was stalled since 1988 and how Islamic Fundamentalists and Feminist Fundamentalists have found a shared enemy in Valentine’s Day.