Surprise, Cheney behind warrantless wiretaps after all

All roads point to Dick Cheney.  In 2004, when Alberto Gonzales was sent to awkwardly argue with hospital-bound John Ashcroft about warrantless wiretaps, Dick Cheney may have been the one behind it all:

Vice President Dick Cheney told Justice Department officials that he disagreed with their objections to a secret surveillance program during a high-level White House  meeting in March 2004, a former senior Justice official told senators yesterday.

The meeting came one day before White House officials tried to get approval for the same program from then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft , who lay recovering from surgery in a hospital, according to former deputy attorney general James B. Comey .

This was all revealed during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing yesterday.

Dick Cheney is a product of the post-Watergate era when officials in the Ford Administration had to work with limited executive power.  That really frustrated Cheney.  Ever since then, he has been on a mission to reestablish White House power the way it was under Nixon.  So far, he has been quite successful.

Comments

[Project Vote Smart]

Vice President Cheney’s history of speeches on wiretaps can be found at: Vice President Cheney’s Record of Speeches

For more information on Vice President Cheney’s position on wiretaps please visit Project Vote Smart or call our hotline at 1-888-VOTE-SMART.

[Tony]

Thanks for that info Vote Smart!

[granny]

I have been reading these posts and noticing the info being posted by "VoteSmart". Especially if net neutrality prevails, one of the great pay offs of the internet is that we will never again have to go to the polls as woefully unaware as some, many, I dare say, of us were about the advisors, running mates,& people surrounding, the candidate. These guys are making records available, and at our fingertips. Both Cheney and Rumsfield had a long and documented political history, well before 2000. Histories, that had they been more accessible, could have been enlightening and perhaps influential in political outcomes. That kind of information is being made so much more accessible now by groups like VoteSmart.

[PatA]

It should not come as any surprise that the corruption and power grab by the executive branch is coordinated at the request of Dick Cheney. He's a Nixon era politician that is jut trying again what couldn't be pulled off under Nixon. This time they have the likes of Alberto Gonzales that doesn't have a clue what the Constitution or Rule of Law stands for in this country. For those crooks, it's no more than a guideline and finding or making up anyway around our laws is their main job. Hitler did the same think, but had much smarter people on his payroll and were able to pull it off. But paid a hign price for a few short years of power. Bush should take a page from Hitlers book....get out and hide.

[sdjmv]

when is the main stream media and the democratic leadership going to get it. start impeachment hearings. And even if they do not get enough votes to carry it off now, SO WHAT! In history they will be vindicated for standing up for truth and justice. All of us on the so called "liberal left" have been spot on from the very beginning. I.E, prior to "dubya's' first election too power. Dubya and cheney are a consolidation of the idiot elite and the egomaniacal power mad sociopathics, not even starting on the opportunistic weasely greedy slime-bags or the american self serving, knee jerk, paranoid, overreactive response to visions of national destruction. I grant you, I woke up to the visions of the burning of the twin towers and the horrific visions of the collapse and the initial reports of over twenty thousand american citizens dying in flame and destruction. And "yes" I was left feeling numb, shocked, grief stricken and insignificant in the face of such personal suffering and grief by others. But I was also aghast when I heard that hundreds of Saudis had been allowed to fly out of our nation without a single instance of honest questioning by either our media or congress as to the legitimacy of such a breach of common sense. Over two hundred thousand of our soldiers have paid with their lives and close to a million innocent iraqs have suffered the destruction of their lives. And I have not even begun to count the millions who will suffer for decades the repercussions of " COLLATERAL DAMAGE"" because of this war. My god over eighty families of "OUR" citizens lost loved ones directly due too loss of life. I am sorry but the reality is at least 240 of our citizens suffered direct indescribable grief and sorrow for the LIES of our amoral leadership, last month alone. Bush and cheney and their synchophants do not deserve our sympathy or human kindness. They deserve our scorn and our most vehement righteous indignation, as well as the utmost consequences of the law. My god where is everyones common sense, these jerks are the scum of the earth, no better than that infamous Dalhmer. They are a bunch of self involved self serving socio paths and no amount of self proclamations of self justifying rhetoric or media glamour can change that, and the enablers either in the republican or democratic party certainly do not deserve our respect or allegiance or patience at this point. Human decency demands that they be stopped at all costs. Because to be honest, If I was the "President I could never sleep, rest or "VACATION' knowing a single young person had "died or been hurt" because of my decision to lie to our congress, media, or citizenry for over six years too date. Even if I was such a cold hearted bastard to demonize a WHOLE" nation so blithely for such egocentric reasoning.

[Sue B]

Since when did anyone give a sh-t what the Vice President thought? He "disagreed" with the Justice Dept.??!! So what? Someone needs to tell him and evidently this entire mis-administration that the big Dick is not the decider. At least not with his lips moving. IMPEACH CHENEY!

[granny]

Big Dick IS the decider. Dubya is the puppet.Egomanical and obstreperous one to be sure, but puppet he is, nonetheless. Arm candy for the SS.