All Democratic candidates for President should announce today that their administration will enforce the laws and fully prosecute any criminal offenses that might be committed today under the protection of the most corrupt Attorney General in the history of the nation.
The last 72 hours was a devastating time for the American constitution and neither our Democratic Leaders nor the blogging world at the Kos convention waged the fight that the occasion demanded.
The Congressional capitulation to a radical expansion of unilateral presidential powers over warrantless eavesdropping is one of the darkest hours in the history of the rule of law.
In this capitulation, which does not even bear the pretense of a compromise and was in fact a total surrender to the most extreme vision of unitary presidential power, it is the most incompetent and dishonest Attorney General in history who determines what is legal and what is "reasonable."
It is known that former Attorney General Ashcroft, former Deputy Attorney General Comey, and current FBI Director Mueller all felt that what the president wanted to do was such a threat to the Republic that they all threatened to resign en masse.
We do not know exactly why; and we must know. It also seems likely the General Mike Hayden, then head of the NSA, might also have objected. This too, we must find out for certain. Moreover, it appears that fight beside John Ashcroft's hospital bed was over actions and policies the high level dissenters did not want continued.
Does this mean some actions they objected to had already been taken and, if so, does this mean laws were broken before they stopped it? This, too, we must know. Crimes should never be classified.
Democrats should have canceled the August recess and fought like patriots against this outrage and the entire Daily Kos community should have risen as one, and turned the Chicago meeting into a war room mobilizing national support to defeat this outrage.
Instead, Democrats in Washington surrendered without a fight and Kos supporters in Chicago were missing in action, without making a fight, at the moment Congress acted.
What is needed is a great debate about how long we will permit the politics of fear to justify the surrender of our freedoms and what is needed is a Democratic Party that takes this case to the country once and for all.
When the Attorney General said there was not major internal dissent against this policy the Attorney General based on publicly known facts was lying.
When the Attorney General said that there were not violations of civil liberties under this program the Attorney General based on publicly known facts was lying.
When the President said in Buffalo in 2004 that nothing had changed and warrants were still required the President based on publicly known facts was lying.
When House Republican leader John Boehner disclosed a previously secret FISA court decision that declared a good part of the eavesdropping illegal, either Boehner was breaking the law by disclosing classified information, or ALL such decisions should now be made public.
Lets remember that FISA violations are crimes punishable by prison. If indeed it is ultimately determined that the law violated there are hundreds of thousands to millions of criminal violations, each punishable by imprisonment.
It is an outrage the President, Vice President and Attorney General sought to legalize what would otherwise be criminal.
It is an outrage the Democrats who control Congress lacked the steel to make this fight.
It is a major, major disappointment that the Daily Kos convention did not rise in outrage and lead a last stand against this vile program and this last Congressional submission to aggressive abuse of Presidential power and failure to faithfully execute the laws of the land.
To repeat the point at the beginning of this note, the statute of limitations for various potential crimes will not have expired when the next President assumes office.
Every Democratic presidential candidate should publicly state, immediately, that the next Administration will enforce these laws, will faithfully execute the laws, and that any perpetrators today would be wise to come forward now.
The day is coming when they will not have George Bush, Dick Cheney and Alberto Gonzales to provide protection for conduct that should never again be allowed in America.
The day must come now, today, when never again will a Democratic Congress capitulate on first principle matters of American law and principled conservatives will never again tolerate such abuses of power and disrespect for law by their party, or any party.
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