Comey

The idea that Article II powers override the FISA law, which the administration has been using to justify its use of warrentless wiretaps unapproved of by OLC, is actually quite frightening. It really is a radical departure from any allegience to the rule of law, the constitution, and our most fundamental values. If the president is able to act soley based on his own interpretation of Article II powers, he could simply bypass the laws, and the courts, and act as an independent, total Ruler. What exists that prevents him from, for example, drawing and quartering terror suspects? Certainly not a prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment, nor the subsequent interpretations of that which have refined American values and law. The human race was not, unfortunately, born civilized. We grew up as a society, and we continue to grow to this day. To grant one man, at his own discretion, the power to disregard that growing process by throwing out laws that we have deemed warranted through experience and past mistakes? We forget, it seems, who brought us here and how. "Give me liberty of give me death?" Not in Bush's America.

Bush supporters seem to be arguing, simply, "well he would never do that." People assume that he wouldn't "go to far," or that the public would be (willing, and) able to prevent this if his transgressions grew too great. Yet...what about the possibility of another terror attack? This is an inevitability, some think, and are we to just abandon ourselves to a dictatorship, striking at the very heart of our society? The death blow, in that case, would be dealt by America herself, allowing Osama bin Laden and his peers the putrid reward of bombing us into another age...pre-Revolution America.

How will these supporters react when, say, Hillary Clinton becomes president? Will they sit back and allow Hillary to spy on their phone conversations, and grant her the power to imprison US citizens without due process, and to violate habeus corpus? I doubt it. I can't imagine the massive Republican exodus from their current position the day a Democrat takes over the White House. Hopefully, no Democrat will determine that the sacrifice required to provide security is worth three of the most foundational pillars of our constitutional democracy.