What???!!!

Here is a link to a Daily Caller article posted today. The article includes a video of President Obama stating that he does not have the power to pass immigration law all by himself. The article then reports the  testimony before Congress by Marielena Hincapié.

The article states:

Hincapié, Executive Director of the National Immigration Law Center, was asked by Republican Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner why the president, after saying on at least 22 separate occasions he did not have the power to do what he did, “he did a 180.”

“Unfortunately I think the president was talking politics,” she began. “He made those comments, much to our dismay, because we believed for many years now that the president did, and does in fact have the legal authority. The president on a number of those occasions was specifically talking about immigration reform–he has been so focused on getting immigration reform done with Congress that he continually told the immigrant rights community that he could not do immigration reform.”

The article then reports the testimony of Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice:

“I think the president was correct when he said he could not make the law or change the law,” Sekulow said. “He was speaking correctly. I think when he made the statement that he has changed the law, he recognized also that he did something–he thought he changed the law. He doesn’t think, by the way, that it was simply a policy decision, he stated he changed the law, and I don’t–as I said in my testimony, Congressman, I don’t believe there’s anybody on this Committee that believes that the president has the authority to change the law. He knew he did not when he made the statement 22 times, and then he changed the law. He doesn’t get to do that.”

I guess it would be politically incorrect to admit that at some point President Obama is lying–either he believes he has the right to write law or he doesn’t. If he believes that the President has the right to write laws, I wonder where he studied the Constitution. I hope someone in Congress will, at some point, decide to stand up for the U.S. Constitution.

Unfortunately We Don’t Live In A Vacuum

This is an article about the eavesdropping scandal currently dominating press reporting on the Obama Administration. I will say offhand that I have very mixed emotions about the intelligence gathering going on. First of all, if the intelligence gathering is so universal and has been going on since 2007, why did it miss the Fort Hood shooting, the 2009 recruiting office shooting in Little Rock, Arkansas, and the Boston Marathon bombings? Of these three the Boston Marathon bombing should have been the easiest to foresee simply by looking at the travel records of the older brother involved.To add to my mixed emotions is the fact that Andrew McCarthy, someone I totally trust on matters of terrorism and the role of government, has stated that he is not bothered by the National Security Agency’s intelligence gathering. I have also heard a recent interview of John Bolton, someone whose opinion I also respect, in which he stated that he was not overly concerned about the information gathering.

I am adding to the discussion an article posted in the Guardian by Representative Jim Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin. Representative Sensenbrenner released the following statement last Thursday:

Washington, Jun 6 – Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI) today sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder regarding the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s application for a top secret court order to collect the phone records of essentially every call made by millions of Verizon customers. 

Congressman Sensenbrenner: “As the author of the Patriot Act, I am extremely troubled by the FBI’s interpretation of this legislation. While I believe the Patriot Act appropriately balanced national security concerns and civil rights, I have always worried about potential abuses. The Bureau’s broad application for phone records was made under the so-called business records provision of the Act.  I do not believe the broadly drafted FISA order is consistent with the requirements of the Patriot Act. Seizing phone records of millions of innocent people is excessive and un-American.”

Since Representative Sensenbrenner was one of the authors of the Patriot Act, I believe he needs to be listened to on this matter.

In his article for the Guardian, Representative Sensenbrenner states:

Technically, the administration’s actions were lawful insofar as they were done pursuant to an order from the Fisa court. But based on the scope of the released order, both the administration and the Fisa court are relying on an unbounded interpretation of the act that Congress never intended.

The released Fisa order requires daily productions of the details of every call that every American makes, as well as calls made by foreigners to or from the United States. Congress intended to allow the intelligence communities to access targeted information for specific investigations. How can every call that every American makes or receives be relevant to a specific investigation?

This is well beyond what the Patriot Act allows.

As I said at the beginning of this article, I have very mixed emotions on this. Because someone in the Obama Administration used the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to target conservatives, how do we know that the NSA information will not also be used to target specific groups? We don’t live in a vacuum. Without the IRS scandal, I might be willing to ignore the NSA snooping, but with the IRS scandal, it has a much more sinister look. I have reached no conclusion except to conclude that I need more information.

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