Bush Tried to Kill NYT Story on 'Snoopgate'

Update: DefenseTech.org has feedback from current and former signal intelligence professionals to the NSA story.

Thanks, Renee, for posting the link to this story in Newsweek via AmericaBlog. John Aravosis was right: It is that good. So good that I thought I'd front-page it this morning so no one misses it.

Jonathan Alter pulls no punches, saying

Finally we have a Washington scandal that goes beyond sex, corruption and political intrigue to big issues like security versus liberty and the reasonable bounds of presidential power. President Bush came out swinging on Snoopgate--he made it seem as if those who didn't agree with him wanted to leave us vulnerable to Al Qaeda--but it will not work. We're seeing clearly now that Bush thought 9/11 gave him license to act like a dictator, or in his own mind, no doubt, like Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War.

No wonder Bush was so desperate that The New York Times not publish its story on the National Security Agency eavesdropping on American citizens without a warrant, in what lawyers outside the administration say is a clear violation of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. I learned this week that on December 6, Bush summoned Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger and executive editor Bill Keller to the Oval Office in a futile attempt to talk them out of running the story. The Times will not comment on the meeting, but one can only imagine the president's desperation.

Desperation because Bush knew that what he had ordered NSA to do was clearly illegal. Bush hid behind the rationale, Alter says, that "he had 'legal authority derived from the Constitution and congressional resolution authorizing force.' " However

the post 9/11 congressional resolution authorizing "all necessary force" in fighting terrorism was made in clear reference to military intervention. It did not scrap the Constitution and allow the president to do whatever he pleased in any area in the name of fighting terrorism.

As usual, the Bush Administration's M.O. is to count on the average American's unfamiliarity with the relevant law, in this case, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA):

In fact, the law allows the government to eavesdrop on its own, then retroactively justify it to the court, essentially obtaining a warrant after the fact. Since 1979, the FISA court has approved tens of thousands of eavesdropping requests and rejected only four. There was no indication the existing system was slow--as the president seemed to claim in his press conference--or in any way required extra-constitutional action.

2006 will be an important year for the Democrats in more ways than one.

This will all play out eventually in congressional committees and in the United States Supreme Court. If the Democrats regain control of Congress, there may even be articles of impeachment introduced. Similar abuse of power was part of the impeachment charge brought against Richard Nixon in 1974.

In the meantime, it is unlikely that Bush will echo President Kennedy in 1961. After JFK managed to tone down a New York Times story by Tad Szulc on the Bay of Pigs invasion, he confided to Times editor Turner Catledge that he wished the paper had printed the whole story because it might have spared him such a stunning defeat in Cuba.

This time, the president knew publication would cause him great embarrassment and trouble for the rest of his presidency. It was for that reason--and less out of genuine concern about national security--that George W. Bush tried so hard to kill the New York Times story.

Here is how Richard Nixon justified his approval of the Huston Plan (systematic use of wiretappings, burglaries, or so-called black bag jobs, mail openings and infiltration against antiwar groups and others), an approval that was later listed in the Articles of Impeachment as an alleged abuse of presidential power: "If the president, for example, approves something because of the national security, or in this case because of a threat to internal peace and order of significant magnitude, then the president's decision in that instance is one that enables those who carry it out, to carry it out without violating a law. Otherwise they're in an impossible position." In other words, "when the president does it that means that it is not illegal."

John Adams wrote in drafting the constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, "to the end it may be a government of laws and not of men," a concept that has been repeated frequently by the Supreme Court and other courts. It is considered a prerequisite for democracy and is therefore inconsistent with the concept that "when the president does something illegal, that means that it is not illegal." Those who make and enforce the law are also bound to adhere to it. There is nothing in the Constitution that makes the president sovreign and above the law.

Like Nixon, Bush is also relying on a comparison to Abraham Lincoln's actions during the Civil War. It's an easy claim to make: Nixon claimed that the Vietnam War was dividing the country ideologically instead of physically, as during the Civil War. But there is no comparison; there is no North and South and even the division between Red and Blue states couldn't justify what has taken place.

Although I would love to see Bush humiliated during an impeachment hearing, if he is forced to resign, we would be facing a presidency under Dick Cheney, who still behaves as though the Cold War hasn't ended. As I continue to read new revelations about this horrific abuse of power and subversion of the Constitution, I'm continually reminded of two sayings: "May you live in interesting times" and "Be careful what you ask for; you just might get it."

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