Thursday, December 29, 2005

Creepiness from Berkeley's own Yoo

Via Crooks and Liars, this creepy quote is just creepy. See, it's not the illegal wiretaps per-se, it's the logic being used to justify them.

Cassel: If the president deems that he's got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the person's child, there is no law that can stop him?

Yoo: No treaty

Cassel: Also no law by Congress -- that is what you wrote in the August 2002 memo...

Yoo: I think it depends on why the President thinks he needs to do that.

When people start argueing that the president can set aside congressional law well... let's just say I start dusting off the word "fascist" and get ready to use it.

posted by Tommaso Sciortino at 12:46 PM

Comments:

"When people start argueing that the president can set aside congressional law well... let's just say I start dusting off the word "fascist" and get ready to use it."

Did you cite a congressional law that's being set aside? The fascists accused people of doing things they weren't, too.

# posted by  Anonymous : 9:02 AM

 

Anonymous, have a look at the post at this link:

http://balkin.blogspot.com/2006/01/so-much-for-presidents-assent-to.html

# posted by  Bill : 10:29 AM

 

Specifically, Bush has admitted to disobeying FISA. He claims that he thinks the law is unconstitutional, but instead of taking it to court (like he should have) or breaking the law in order to encourage a lawsuit that would take the issue to the court (like Gavin Newsome did with the gay marriage) he simply started breaking the law and not telling anyone. Even if you belive that FISA is illegal, you can't excuse Bush setting aside the law and covering it up.

# posted by  Tommaso Sciortino : 3:14 PM

 

Tommaso, you do realize that Newsome broke the law with gay marriages. His strategy was to ignore the law because he believed it was wrong. It was then challenged in the courts, much like Bush's actions will be. I'm sure both Newsome and Bush would have been happy to get away with their respective law breaking.

# posted by  Anonymous : 12:39 AM

 

That's a very good point. Newsome did break the law. Though I defended him on legal grounds at the time I was wrong. Newsome's actions were only justifiable morally.

But of course, Bush's actions aren't justifiable morally becuase it only counts as civil disobedience if you TELL SOMEONE ABOUT IT!!!!

So to recap: Bush a bad person who breaks the law.

# posted by  Tommaso Sciortino : 10:03 AM

 

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