There were no such things as blogs at the time, though. (Salon’s TableTalk came closest, and even that didn’t really get going until the impeachment imbroglio.) People had to express their anger in LTE or in calls to their Congresscritters.

I can make the arguement that it’s necessary to trample your rights and have shadowy government agents rape you and and your children in your home if its in the interest of NATIONAL SECURITY, because after all, NATIONAL SECURITY is what matters here, and ANYTHING can be excused in the name of NATIONAL SECURITY, which makes the president COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF-OF-SECURITY …

Save your breath. The John Birch Society made that “argument” years ago.

In 1994 the Clinton administration argued that the president has “inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches for foreign intelligence purposes”, in the words of AG deputy Jamie Gorelick. (Did you notice? Didn’t think so.) That’s way more leeway than I would ever give them, yet I doubt that any Clintonites broke into your house and raped you.

The Clinton administration went way beyond “foreign intelligence purposes”, ordering warrantless drug sweeps of schools and public housing in Chicago. Again, that’s way the hell over any line I would draw.

Clinton pushed and signed the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, which required a multi-billion dollar makeover of the telecommunications industry to make phones lines more accessible to wire taps. I wouldn’t have gone for that, either.

Again, did all your civil liberties disappear while Clinton was running amok? Did you even notice?

Then again, it’s true that no one has argued the right of the government to do this before. Except, somehow, the Bush Administration even managed to screw up THAT by not going through the proper channels (ie the courts), and decided now was the time to declare that Bush was Il Principe in the spirit of Machivelli. Instead they got to fight a worthless, and ultimately pointless, war with the courts (who were pissed for being left out) along with the ACLU and the liberal fringe. Who’s the genius now?

Look, I don’t really MIND Bush and the republican agenda…if only they didn’t SUCK at it, stories like this wouldn’t make the airwaves. The majority of what Bush has done is no different from most modern presidents…except he manages to bungle even the smallest things. But that’s what you get when you have the political skills of a rock.

So after shopping this dog around to every judge in the country, the ACLU finally got on the scoreboard: Feds 5, ACLU 1.

See you at the Supreme Court, boys and girls.

Justin Warren wrote in U.S. v. Robel, 389 U.S. 258 (1967): “Implicit in the term ‘national defense’ is the notion of defending those values and ideas which set this Nation apart…It would indeed be ironic if, in the name of national defense, we would sanction the subversion of…those liberties…which makes the defense of the Nation worthwhile.”

While the quote is nifty (and I mean really nifty – shout it from the roof tops), the facts of the case are at the outer-edge of applicablity. Robel was dealing with a self-confessed commie bastard working at a shipyard in violation of the Subversive Activities Control Act of 1950.

Here the pdf of the actual order/memorandum. I haven’t read it yet.