Bryan Strawser

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Someone had to say it…

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I’m glad John McCain included these lines:

I fight to restore the pride and principles of our party. We were elected to change Washington, and we let Washington change us. We lost the trust of the American people when some Republicans gave in to the temptations of corruption. We lost their trust when rather than reform government, both parties made it bigger. We lost their trust when instead of freeing ourselves from a dangerous dependence on foreign oil, both parties and Senator Obama passed another corporate welfare bill for oil companies. We lost their trust, when we valued our power over our principles.

Amen brother. Amen.

DC v Heller

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Someone asked me the other day why I hadn’t blogged about DC v Heller, the Supreme Court Gun Control case that was decided a few days ago.

I replied – “Because it’s the outcome that I had always hoped for – and the one that I expected to see…”

I’ve been an advocate of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms since the day that I read the Bill of Rights and truly felt as if I understood what it meant – I feel just as strongly about the other amendments and the rest of the Constitution as well.

Prior to 9/11, I was nearly a single issue voter – that issue was gun control. A candidate’s stance on this issue tended to embody for me what I perceived to be that candidate’s view on most of the Constitution – even though that wasn’t quite true in most of the cases.

Now that the core issue is decided, I’m looking forward to the next 20 years of court decisions dealing with individual and specific issues related to this ruling.

Oh, and to all of you who I’ve argued this issue with who were on the other side of the issue – I told you so.

Election 2008

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It’s only March and I’m already tired of hearing about the election.

Hillary has absolutely no chance of ever getting my vote. Past behavior is indicative of future behavior – and we’ll leave it at that.

Barack is someone I like – but I can’t abide his proposed policies. I read his views on criminal justice, gun control, homeland security, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and that was enough to completely turn me off.

I would not have chosen McCain for the Republican nomination – but he’s the guy that won. I toyed with perhaps voting Libertarian again but decided against it.

So again, I’ll support the lesser of the two evils – McCain gets my vote, my funding, and my support.

Can we go vote now?

State of the Union: Best Line

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Yet there is a difference between responsible criticism that aims for success, and defeatism that refuses to acknowledge anything but failure. Hindsight alone is not wisdom. And second-guessing is not a strategy.

A pledge from the Democrats

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Over at Power Line, John asks:

Do we have the Democrats’ pledge that under a Democratic administration, the government would not use radiation-detecting equipment to search for dirty bombs? If so, that should make it a lot easier for millions of Americans to cast their votes in the 2008 election.

Likewise, I’d like to hear the Democrats stand up and say that they’re also going to terminate the NSA intercept program. It will make it a hell of lot easier for the electorate to choose sides.

NSA Wiretap Program

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Of the many legal analyses of the NSA’s wiretap program that I’ve read – at least the ones actually written by lawyers – John @ Power Line Blog appears to have the best breakdown of the legality of this program that I’ve seen:

There is no mystery about the legality of the NSA intercept program. It is intended to capture foreign intelligence information, including information about potential terrorist threats, and as such, every federal court that has addressed the issue has held that it is within the inherent constitutional power of the President as Commander in Chief. Everything else is immaterial.

This brings us back where we started, i.e., the Constitution. The only constitutional limitation on the President’s power to intercept communications by Americans for national security purposes is that such intercepts be “reasonable.” Is it reasonable for the administration to do all it can to identify the people who are communicating with known terrorists overseas, via the terrorists’ cell phones and computers, and to learn what terrorist plots are being hatched by those persons? Is it reasonable to do so even when—rather, especially when–some portion of those communications come from people inside the United States? I don’t find it difficult to answer those questions; nor, if called upon to do so, would the Supreme Court.

There are, of course, liberal law professors who would like the law to be different from what it is. They are free to develop theories according to which the Supreme Court, should it someday address this issue directly, would rule as they wish. But the administration is entitled to rely on the law as it currently exists. And there is simply no question about the fact that under the Constitution and all controlling precedents, the NSA intercept program is legal.

John Schmidt, who was one of Clinton’s Associate Attorneys General, writes in the Chicago Tribune:

President Bush’s post- Sept. 11, 2001, authorization to the National Security Agency to carry out electronic surveillance into private phone calls and e-mails is consistent with court decisions and with the positions of the Justice Department under prior presidents.

The president authorized the NSA program in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks on America. An identifiable group, Al Qaeda, was responsible and believed to be planning future attacks in the United States. Electronic surveillance of communications to or from those who might plausibly be members of or in contact with Al Qaeda was probably the only means of obtaining information about what its members were planning next. No one except the president and the few officials with access to the NSA program can know how valuable such surveillance has been in protecting the nation.

It will be interesting to see in the coming years how this plays out. My prediction is that a Court of Appeals, unless it’s the 9th Circuit, will rule in favor of the President. The Supreme Court will likely do the same – but much hinges as well on some other cases that will be heard before this as I believe they will establish precedent that may be applicable in this case in terms of the wartime powers of the President under Article II.

So?

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Today’s New York Times has this story about police surveillance of protest groups and activists:

Undercover New York City police officers have conducted covert surveillance in the last 16 months of people protesting the Iraq war, bicycle riders taking part in mass rallies and even mourners at a street vigil for a cyclist killed in an accident, a series of videotapes show.

In glimpses and in glaring detail, the videotape images reveal the robust presence of disguised officers or others working with them at seven public gatherings since August 2004.

The officers hoist protest signs. They hold flowers with mourners. They ride in bicycle events. At the vigil for the cyclist, an officer in biking gear wore a button that said, “I am a shameless agitator.” She also carried a camera and videotaped the roughly 15 people present.

And while this may make some people uncomfortable, I ask.. so?

I do not want law enforcement interfering or attempting to steer the course of these events, which some allege in this article.

However, I have zero problem with them collecting intelligence information. Some of these groups are disruptive – and were disruptive during the political conventions in 2004 – in both Boston and New York. Shouldn’t the police be investigating to determine if there’s going to be a threat?