White House Falsely Claims Clinton White
House Used Warrantless Searches that Violated the Law
WTOP/AP
By NEDRA PICKLER
Associated Press Writer
January 17, 2005
WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House accused former Vice President Al Gore of
hypocrisy Tuesday for his assertion that President Bush broke the law by
eavesdropping on Americans without court approval.
"If Al Gore is going to be the voice of the Democrats on national security
matters, we welcome it," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said in a
swipe at the Democrat, who lost the 2000 election to Bush.
Gore, in a speech Monday, called for an independent investigation of the
administration program that he says broke the law by listening in _ without
warrants _ on Americans suspected of talking with terrorists abroad.
Gore called the program, authorized by President Bush, "a threat to the very
structure of our government" and charged that the administration acted without
congressional authority and made a "direct assault" on a federal court set up
to authorize requests to eavesdrop on Americans.
Meanwhile, two civil liberties groups _ the American Civil Liberties Union
and the Center for Constitutional Rights _ filed federal lawsuits Tuesday
seeking to block the eavesdropping program, which they called unconstitutional
electronic surveillance of American citizens.
McClellan said the Clinton-Gore administration had engaged in warrantless
physical searches, and he cited an FBI search of the home of CIA turncoat
Aldrich Ames without permission from a judge. He said Clinton's deputy attorney
general, Jamie Gorelick, had testified before Congress that the president had
the inherent authority to engage in physical searches without warrants.
"I think his hypocrisy knows no bounds," McClellan said of Gore.
But at the time that of the Ames search in 1993 and when Gorelick testified
a year later, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act required warrants for
electronic surveillance for intelligence purposes, but did not cover physical
searches. The law was changed to cover physical searches in 1995 under
legislation that Clinton supported and signed.
Gore said Attorney General Alberto Gonzales should name a special counsel to
investigate the program, saying Gonzales had an "obvious conflict of interest"
as a member of the Bush Cabinet as well as the nation's top law enforcement
officer.
Gonzales, who has agreed to testify publicly at a Senate hearing on the
program, defended the surveillance on cable news talk shows Monday night.
"This program has been reviewed carefully by lawyers at the Department of
Justice and other agencies," Gonzales said on Fox News Channel's "Hannity &
Colmes." "We firmly believe that this program is perfectly lawful. The
president has the legal authority to authorize these kinds of programs."
On CNN's "Larry King Live," Gonzales said Gore's comments were inconsistent
with Clinton administration policy.
"It's my understanding that during the Clinton administration there was
activity regarding physical searches without warrants," Gonzales said. "I can
also say it's my understanding that the deputy attorney general testified
before Congress that the president does have the inherent authority under the
Constitution to engage in physical searches without a warrant. And so, those
would certainly seem to be inconsistent with what the former vice president was
saying today."
Gore said there is still much to learn about the domestic surveillance
program, but that he already has drawn a conclusion about its legality.
"What we do know about this pervasive wiretapping virtually compels the
conclusion that the president of the United States has been breaking the law
repeatedly and insistently," he said.
Bush has pointed to a congressional resolution passed after the attacks of
Sept. 11, 2001, that authorized him to use force in the fight against terrorism
as allowing him to order the program.
Gore, however, contended that Bush failed to convince Congress to support a
domestic spying program, so he "secretly assumed that power anyway, as if
congressional authorization was a useless bother."
He said the spying program must be considered along with other
administration actions as a constitutional power grab by the president. Gore
cited imprisoning American citizens without charges in terrorism cases,
mistreatment of prisoners _ including torture _ and seizure of individuals in
foreign countries and delivering them to autocratic regimes "infamous for the
cruelty of their techniques."
(Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may
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