Mything The Point On Snoopgate Too

So Alberto Gonzales argues that Congress gave the President power to conduct warrantless snooping on Americans via the AUMF - even though Congress is certain it did no such thing and thinks FISA law ruled such matters. I think it's sensible to take Congress' word for its intentions, eh?

The administration knows it too, as proven last year when Gonzales lied by ommission to Congress about the existance of the NSA program, so Rove has been leaning on GOP members of both houses, threatening them with a funding and access blacklist if they don't toe the line. Which is why GOP senators didn't ask Gonzales to testify under oath and why Republican members are banging on as if questioning the President's illegal actions was suddenly a form of membership in Al Qaida. How can it be unpatriotic to say the President broke the law if that's exactly what he did? Its ridiculous to be content with administration arguments that they only snoop on those with an Al Qaida connection too. Who is watching the watchers who have lied to us so many times in the past? The Cato Institute, not needing Rove's money, gets it right:

The overriding issue that's at stake in these hearings is the stance of the administration that they're going to decide in secrecy which laws they're going to follow and which laws they can bypass," said Timothy Lynch, director of Cato's project on criminal justice.

Having forwarded legal arguments that are utterly out of gas, the Bush regime reverts to a populist argument - "most Americans want warrantless spying on Al Qaida". Fine, but that just won't cut it either. To see why, consider a different version of the same argument involving another immediate and clear danger to society. I'm pretty certain that most Americans are in favor of hauling convicted pedophiles out of court without delay and hanging them from the nearest lampost. But if they wanted to do that it would still be an illegal lynch mob unless they changed the law first and no-one would argue otherwise.