Censure Hearing

I watched the Censure hearing yesterday and was mostly pleased with your conduct , statements, and questions. However, I do not htink it was necessary to attack Mr. Dean as you did. That was completely uncalled for and was not appropriate. Mr. Dean did commit a crime, but he has completed his time and has always been honest. He wouldn’t even lie to protect President Nixon. The other disappointing thing is that your facts and interpretation (?) of history were completely wrong. Neither Nixon nor Dean knew of the break-in at the Watergate and so of course they did not order it. I would expect that you would know this history better than I because you were in college at the time this occured and I was not yet born or a glimmer in my momma’s eye.

In spite of this, I give you credit for apologizing for what was rude and obnoxious behavior in the examination of a witness. I can see and accept that these are highly strung emotional and political times, so we will all make mistakes. I know, for I have done similar things and apologized in many instances.

The issue with Mr. Nixon was illegal wiretapping. The present concern is that Mr. Bush is committing the same crime, only this time in the name of protecting us from terrorism. Mr. Nixon was tapping anti-war groups and Mr. Bush is accused of doing the same. These are serious accusations and should be investigated. While some of the occurances of Watergate make it an apples to oranges comparison, when one only looks at the burglary of the DNC headquarters, may have a different if they actually looked at the full charges in the articles of impeachment. Some of the same accusation, with regard to wiretaps exists today.

This aside, I was pleased with your questioning of the other witnesses. I also agree with Mr. Fein on quite a few things and have a problem with the argument the the President puts forward becasue the logical extreme is that the President cannot be curtailed at all.

I like Sen. Specter’s idea of submitting the program to a court review. I also do not think that a visit with a congressional subcommittee that does not have the authority to authorize a warrant is enough. If the President wants to continue surveillence he should have to appear before a neutral magistrate, just like regular law enforcement. This protects the rights of citizens. You had it tight when you said that you did not wish for a U.S. citizen to be interminably followed. We need to keep a balance not only between the legislative and executive branches but also between liberty and security. Terrorism will be with us forever, so we best handle the challenges presented with law and honor rather than becoming an overly security conscious state.

I find most interesting a peripheral and unarticulated argument that FISA is unconstitutional. If this is the case then why has it not been challenged before the court?

I have the preference of a strong legislature because I feel that it is important to have non-insular eyes look over any Presient’s actions in war time becasue this is when unprecedented and sometimes unacceptable expansions of executive power occur. The legislature more accurately represents the people, especially in the situation we find ourselves in now where there is steadily at least 50% of the population that does not approve of the President’s actions because they feel that he cannot be trusted. They would like the legislature to stand up and investigate the complaints. The ACLU, and I know how we feel about them, has put together cases showing abuses of this NSA program and this should be investigated by the legislature.

It is time to disengage the partisanship and engage our investigative minds. We need to begin asking the right questions of the right people. We have only been able to ask questions based on knowing sparse things about the program and the administration’s theory of executive power, which you disagree with becasue it goes too far. It is time to call administration officials to oversight hearings on this program and obtain all the information we need, so we can properly legislate its scope and rules of operation.

Thank you.