FISKING GORE; EXPOSING GORE'S LIES AND DISTORTIONS

FROM THE GORE TEXT:

(1) "Congressman Barr and I have disagreed many times over the years, but we have joined together today with thousands of our fellow citizens-Democrats and Republicans alike-to express our shared concern that America's Constitution is in grave danger. In spite of our differences over ideology and politics, we are in strong agreement that the American values we hold most dear have been placed at serious risk by the unprecedented claims of the Administration to a truly breathtaking expansion of executive power."

GORE LIES. Here is the truth: Similar claims have been been made before by previous presidents and upheld by the courts; therefore they are NOT unprecedented, or breathtaking.

(2) "As we begin this new year, the Executive Branch of our government has been caught eavesdropping on huge numbers of American citizens and has brazenly declared that it has the unilateral right to continue without regard to the established law enacted by Congress to prevent such abuses."

GORES LIES. Here is the truth (according to the NYTIMES original article): The numbers are NOT HUGE, but miniscule. The original NYTIMES article asserted that as many as 1000 US persons (not all of whom might be CITIZENS) had ONLY their INTERNATIONAL calls to AL QAEDA interecepted. This is 1/300th of 1/tenth of one-percent of the US population; [this figure has been corrected, courtesy of a commenter.]. In addition, Bush DID CONSULT AND INFORM BOTH CONGRESS AND THE FISC. So, it was not unilateral and without regard for Congress or FISA.

(3) "The New York Times reported that the President decided to launch this massive eavesdropping program 'without search warrants or any new laws that would permit such domestic intelligence collection.' "

ANOTHER GORE LIE. Here is the truth: The intercepted calls were INTERNATIONAL not domestic; there is a difference. Even the 2nd NYTIMES article on this matter conceded that according to their leakers only a dozen DOMESTIC calls were intertcepted and these were only intercepted by accident. AGAIN: "massive" is a concept that just doesn't apply to the program.

(4) "During the period when this eavesdropping was still secret, the President went out of his way to reassure the American people on more than one occasion that, of course, judicial permission is required for any government spying on American citizens and that, of course, these constitutional safeguards were still in place. But surprisingly, the President's soothing statements turned out to be false."

GORE LIES AGAIN. Here is the truth: When Bush was talking about court-ordered wiretaps, he was specifically talking about ROVING WIRETAPS and the PATRIOT ACT. And besides: WHY WOULD THE POTUS LEAK A SECRET OPERATION!?

(5) "At present, we still have much to learn about the NSA's domestic surveillance. What we do know about this pervasive wiretapping virtually compels the conclusion that the President of the United States has been breaking the law repeatedly and persisnthtly."

GORE IS LYING. Here is the truth: The NSA intercepts were NOT domestic and were highly targeted and not pervasive. LOOKIT FOLKS: when you go to the airport to catch a flight from JFK to Heathrow in the UK you do NOT go to the DOMESTIC terminal; you go to the INTERNATIONAL terminal. DOMESTIC means ENTIRELY WITHIN THE USA. These intercepts were NOT "ENTIRELY WITHIN THE USA;" hence anyone who calls it "domestic surveillance" is LYING.

(6) "As the executive acts outside its constitutionally prescribed role and is able to control access to information that would expose its actions, it becomes increasingly difficult for the other branches to police it. Once that ability is lost, democracy itself is threatened and we become a government of men and not laws."

That's a LIE. Here's the TRUTH: Bush acted CONSTITUTIONALLY according to Clinton USA Associate AG John Schmidt and liberal constitutional lawyer Cass Sunstein - and many other lawyers who cite NUMEROUS cases, INCLUDING THE SCOTUS. The 1972 SCOTUS KEITH DECISION and subsequent decisions in the FISCR and the FISC and federal district courts have ALL upheld the power of the POTUS, as CiC, to order warrantless collection of signal intelligence within the USA and on US CITIZENS in order to gather intel on FOREIGN powers to aid national security. [Nixon CLAIMED (falsely) that his targets were domestic threats, and that's why the SCOTUS held what he did was unconstitutional.]

(7) "And the disrespect embodied in these apparent mass violations of the law is part of a larger pattern of seeming indifference to the Constitution that is deeply troubling to millions of Americans in both political parties."

I agree that many people are troubled by this program, but I assert it's because DEMAGOGUES of the Left - like Gore - have blown it WAY OUT OF PROPORTION; for example, this sentence AGAIN refers to the program as "mass violations of the law." This is so hyperbolic it is mendacious.

(8) "... the President has also declared that he has a heretofore unrecognized inherent power to seize and imprison any American citizen that he alone determines to be a threat to our nation, and that, notwithstanding his American citizenship, the person imprisoned has no right to talk with a lawyer-even to argue that the President or his appointees have made a mistake and imprisoned the wrong person. The President claims that he can imprison American citizens indefinitely for the rest of their lives without an arrest warrant, without notifying them about what charges have been filed against them, and without informing their families that they have been imprisoned. At the same time, the Executive Branch has claimed a previously unrecognized authority to mistreat prisoners in its custody in ways that plainly constitute torture in a pattern that has now been documented in U.S. facilities located in several countries around the world."

These are just more distortions and hyperbole from Gore. The truth is that the SCOTUS has held that the POTUS can designate as US citizen an enemy combatant. Enemy combatants - like POW's - can be held until the the end of the hostilities. And neither the POTUS or any other part of the executive branch has ever condoned torture. Whenever and wherever torture, or even less harmful acts, such as degradation, were discovered the perps have been punished. As for RENDITION of dangerous terrorists to SECRET PRISONS outside the USA, where another nation takes custody (and maybe treats them more harshly than we would) - BEGAN UNDER THE CLINTON-GORE ADMINSTRATION. It is highly disengenuous for Gore to critique Bush for using tools invented by him and Clinton.

(9) "... after appearing to support legislation sponsored by John McCain to stop the continuation of torture, the President declared in the act of signing the bill that he reserved the right not to comply with it."

GORE IS DISTORTING AGAIN. here's the truth: This is standard and common POTUS "signing-talk" - and Clinton did the same thing as he signed numerous bills - including the INTELLIGENCE WHISTLEBLOWER PROTECTION ACT in 1998. AGAIN: Gore is trying to make Bush seem SINGULARLY evil, when in fact what Bush is asserting about POTUS powers has been asserted by VIRTUALLY EVERY SINGLE PRESIDENT.

(10) "There have of course been other periods of American history when the Executive Branch claimed new powers that were later seen as excessive and mistaken. Our second president, John Adams, passed the infamous Alien and Sedition Acts and sought to silence and imprison critics and political opponents. When his successor, Thomas Jefferson, eliminated the abuses he said: "[The essential principles of our Government] form the bright constellation which has gone before us and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation... [S]hould we wander from them in moments of error or of alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty and safety."

Our greatest President, Abraham Lincoln, suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War. Some of the worst abuses prior to those of the current administration were committed by President Wilson during and after WWI with the notorious Red Scare and Palmer Raids. The internment of Japanese Americans during WWII marked a low point for the respect of individual rights at the hands of the executive. And, during the Vietnam War, the notorious COINTELPRO program was part and parcel of the abuses experienced by Dr. King and thousands of others."

WELL WELL WELL: GORE TELLS THE TRUTH! What Gore fails to see is the OBVIOUS: That EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THESE PREVIOUS PRESIDENTIAL ACTS WAS A GREATER "POTUS POWER GRAB" THAN ANYTHING BUSH HAS DONE. Yet, Gore still idolizes FDR and Lincoln, for example. And rightly so. What each of these Presidents they did during wartime was justified and constitutional (except for the GREATEST one of them all, LINCOLN!). [As for Cointelpro: it was held to be focused on domestic threats and therefore not within the powers of the POTUS as CiC (who can independently order surveillance of FOREIGN threats).]

Gore and all the other BDS afflicted politicians should STOP LYING AND DISTORTING or just shut up.

[NOTE: There are a few sane critics of the president's NSA intercept program who have voiced legitimate concerns about the scope of the program and whether there were enough safeguards to ensure that the scope was limited, but Gore is OBVIOUSLY NOT one of them.

I want to remind you all that when the FISC orders SECRET electronic surveillance on a US citizens it is up to the USA AG (and his agencies) or ther CIA's IG or the NSA's IG to make sure (through self-policing) that the order is correctly adhered to. The very same procedures and oversight were in effect for this program too - so there was never any GREATER threat that THIS SECRET program would abused than any other FISC ordered surveillance. Thinking there could, or would be, is illogical.]

More HERE, and TEXT here, too. And there's more HERE. And there's ALWAYS more at POWERLINE, who rightly recommends this excellent post with historical background by the always amazing GATEWAY PUNDIT.