Logic, History and the Facts Prove That Pres. Clinton Did Not Break FISA Laws

Gop slime machine: It’s a classic Mayberry Machiavelli maneuver right out of the Atwater/Rove/Bush playbook. When your side has done something criminally malfeasant, kick up dust by claiming your opponents have done it too.

Reacting to news that George Bush admitted that he spied on Americans without bothering to get the proper warrants and thereby violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) law – while also shredding the U.S. Constitution and its prohibitions against against unreasonable searches and seizures — rightwing propagandists like Drudge and Byron York have floated the claim that Democratic presidents Clinton and Carter essentially did the same thing.

You don’t even have to know the facts in the matter to know that these are Big Lies. All you have to do is apply logic and a casual knowledge of Clinton era history.

During the entirety of his presidency, President Clinton was under investigation by the Republican Congress for matters large (the death of Vince Foster) and small (who paid the postage on answer to fan mail sent to the Clintons’ cat), and everthing in between – all of which turned out to be bogus. (They finally resorted to perjury-trapping him into a sex lie.)

The actions related to warrantless seizures taken by the Clinton Administration were legal and the Republicans in Congress were fully aware that these actions were being taken. Think about it: If corrupt Gop politicians like Newt Gingrich, Dan Burton and Henry Hyde had even suspected that Clinton’s actions were illegal – or if they could have found a way to contort the facts to make it appear he had broken the law – they would have impeached him much sooner than they did.

And the idea that Jimmy Carter – the last truly decent and honorable man to serve as president – would break the law is simply laughable.

Drudge, York et al are simply lying:

What Drudge says:

Clinton, February 9, 1995: “The Attorney General is authorized to approve physical searches, without a court order”

What Clinton actually signed:

Section 1. Pursuant to section 302(a)(1) [50 U.S.C. 1822(a)] of the [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance] Act, the Attorney General is authorized to approve physical searches, without a court order, to acquire foreign intelligence information for periods of up to one year, if the Attorney General makes the certifications required by that section.

That section requires the Attorney General to certify is the search will not involve “the premises, information, material, or property of a United States person.” That means U.S. citizens or anyone inside of the United States.

The entire controversy about Bush’s program is that, for the first time ever, allows warrantless surveillance of U.S. citizens and other people inside of the United States. Clinton’s 1995 executive order did not authorize that.

Drudge pulls the same trick with Carter.

What Drudge says:

Jimmy Carter Signed Executive Order on May 23, 1979: “Attorney General is authorized to approve electronic surveillance to acquire foreign intelligence information without a court order.”

What Carter’s executive order actually says:

1-101. Pursuant to Section 102(a)(1) of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1802(a)), the Attorney General is authorized to approve electronic surveillance to acquire foreign intelligence information without a court order, but only if the Attorney General makes the certifications required by that Section.

What the Attorney General has to certify under that section is that the surveillance will not contain “the contents of any communication to which a United States person is a party.” So again, no U.S. persons are involved.

Byron York, writing in the National Review, claimed that:

…Then-Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick’s July 14, 1994 testimony where she argues “the President has inherent authority to conduct warrantless physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes.” …

Here is what York obscures: at the time of Gorelick’s testimony, physical searches weren’t covered under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). It’s not surprising that, in 1994, Gorelick argued that physical searches weren’t covered by FISA. They weren’t. With Clinton’s backing, the law was amended in 1995 to include physical searches.

York claims that, after the law was amended, “the Clinton administration did not back down from its contention that the president had the authority to act when necessary.” That’s false. Neither Gorelick or the Clinton administration ever argued that president’s inherent “authority” allowed him to ignore FISA. (We’ve posted the full text of Gorelick’s testimony here).

The Clinton administration viewed FISA, a criminal statute, as the law. The Bush administration viewed it as a recommendations they could ignore. That’s the difference.

Of course, the mainstream media will let these false claims bounce around forever. The anti-democracy plutocrats who run the rightwing message machine know this. They depend on the fact that the DC Kool Kids in the press corps to stay focused on their manicures and kids’ private school tuition, giving the Machaivellis free reign to obfuscate their Dear Leader’s criminal actions.

And even if one or two of the media’s million-dollar babies happens to accidentally wake up and catch Rove & Co. in a lie. The wingers don’t care. It’s just the “libruhl media” hating on poor ol’ George Bush. It doesn’t matter to the Gops in DC whether smart people are onto them. All they need to do is fool their own base into believing their lies.

The GOP strategy of the Bush era – which is basically a retread of the GOP strategy from the McCarthy era – is to keep the Dittoheads scared of terrorists (and blacks and homos) in their midst, blind to the true facts (at one point, upwards of 70 percent of Republican voters believed that Saddam blew up the World Trade Center) and angry at the Dems even though it is the Gops themselves who are robbing their own middle class constituents and handing the loot over to their wealthy donors.

This strategy has worked beautifully for them over past three election cycles. And there’s nothing today that indicates it will fail over the next three cycles or more.

Connect: