Echoes of Nixon and post-Nixon days

[No Exit]

"An Addiction That Time Failed to Cure"

by Swopa

"An intense debate erupted during the Ford administration over the president's powers to eavesdrop without warrants to gather foreign intelligence, according to newly disclosed government documents. George H.W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney are cited in the documents.

The roughly 200 pages of historic records obtained by The Associated Press reflect a remarkably similar dispute between the White House and Congress fully three decades before President Bush's acknowledgment he authorized wiretaps without warrants of some Americans in terrorism investigations.

. . . "We strongly believe it is unwise for the president to concede any lack of constitutional power to authorize electronic surveillance for foreign intelligence purposes," wrote Robert Ingersoll, then-deputy secretary of state, in a 1976 memorandum to President Ford about the proposed bill on electronic surveillance.

George H.W. Bush, then director of the CIA . . . also complained that some major communications companies were unwilling to install government wiretaps without a judge's approval. Such a refusal "seriously affects the capabilities of the intelligence community," Bush wrote."

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2603

At the link, there's an old picture of Rumsfeld that I hadn't seen before. It's even older than the one which shows him avidly shaking Saddam's hand.

On Edit: OH. MY. GOD. The guy in the picture to the left of Rumsfeld is CHENEY. I didn't recognize him with hair!!! But, yes, there it is--the very same sneer on his face. He had the same perpetual sneer or smirk on his face even thirty years ago!

[MADem]

1. Those two assholes used to work on WH staff during Nixon and Ford

Indeed, that is Five Deferments Dick with his cohort in crime. The reason they've gotten away with so much is that they've had so long to plot and plan, ya see....

[No Exit]

2. The evil and cowardly Cheney. To borrow a line from "The Godfather 2",

"he's been dying of the same heart attack for years."