Inspired by this Atrios post, here's a chronology of technically true but misleading statements by President Bush and his administration that imply court orders are required for all government wiretaps:
President Bush -- April 19, 2004:
For years, law enforcement used so-called roving wire taps to investigate organized crime. You see, what that meant is if you got a wire tap by court order -- and, by the way, everything you hear about requires court order, requires there to be permission from a FISA court, for example.
President Bush -- April 20, 2004:
Secondly, there are such things as roving wiretaps. Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution.
President Bush -- June 9, 2005:
One tool that has been especially important to law enforcement is called a roving wiretap. Roving wiretaps allow investigators to follow suspects who frequently change their means of communications. These wiretaps must be approved by a judge, and they have been used for years to catch drug dealers and other criminals. Yet, before the Patriot Act, agents investigating terrorists had to get a separate authorization for each phone they wanted to tap. That means terrorists could elude law enforcement by simply purchasing a new cell phone. The Patriot Act fixed the problem by allowing terrorism investigators to use the same wiretaps that were already being using against drug kingpins and mob bosses.
White House fact sheet - June 9, 2005:
The Patriot Act extended the use of roving wiretaps, which were already permitted against drug kingpins and mob bosses, to international terrorism investigations. They must be approved by a judge. Without roving wiretaps, terrorists could elude law enforcement by simply purchasing a new cell phone.
President Bush -- July 20, 2005:
The Patriot Act helps us defeat our enemies while safeguarding civil liberties for all Americans. The judicial branch has a strong oversight role in the application of the Patriot Act. Law enforcement officers need a federal judge's permission to wiretap a foreign terrorist's phone, or to track his calls, or to search his property. Officers must meet strict standards to use any of the tools we're talking about. And they are fully consistent with the Constitution of the United States.
White House fact sheet -- July 20, 2005:
The judicial branch has a strong oversight role in the application of the Patriot Act. Law enforcement officers must seek a federal judge's permission to wiretap a foreign terrorist's phone, track his calls, or search his property. These strict standards are fully consistent with the Constitution. Congress also oversees the application of the Patriot Act, and in more than three years there has not been a single verified abuse.
President Bush -- December 10, 2005:
The Patriot Act is helping America defeat our enemies while safeguarding civil liberties for all our people. The judicial branch has a strong oversight role in the application of the Patriot Act. Under the act, law enforcement officers need a federal judge's permission to wiretap a foreign terrorist's phone or search his property. Congress also oversees our use of the Patriot Act. Attorney General Gonzales delivers regular reports on the Patriot Act to the House and the Senate.
Technically true but misleading claims are the signature tactic of this administration, so it's not surprising to see them pop up again here. All I can say is we told you so.
Update 12/20: As The New Republic's Michael Crowley and commenters have pointed out, some of these statements may be completely false. That's definitely a possibility, though most or all of them could be parsed as technically accurate in reference to the Patriot Act, as I note in a comment below.
Ultimately, however, semantic debates of this sort are a diversion, and that's why I avoided the issue in the post. We didn't use the word "lie" to describe any of Bush's statements in All the President's Spin because it relies on unknowable information about intent, and bogs us down in arguments about whether statements are completely false. The same applies here. What matters is that the President made statements to the American people that were demonstrably misleading. Whether they were full-blown "lies" or not is irrelevant.
He was for court orders before he was against them.
I think we have a word for this....
Posted by: Volvo Liberal | December 20, 2005 at 01:13 PM
"Nothing has changed, by the way"
That's not "technically true." It's a LIE.
Posted by: | December 20, 2005 at 01:18 PM
You made it on the front page Daily Kos! Congrats.
Posted by: Adam Brown | December 20, 2005 at 01:38 PM
Well, it's sort of technically true with reference to the Patriot Act, which is what he was discussing. It did not change the fact that court orders were required in order to perform wiretaps under the world's existing understanding of US law. His (secret) dictate did.
But regardless of whether the "nothing has changed" statement might be accurate under some strained parsing, the statement is exceptionally misleading.
Posted by: Brendan Nyhan | December 20, 2005 at 01:39 PM
I guess the phrase "technically true" means different things to different people, because I don't see how these statements are true at all. Sure, in one sense, he is telling the truth that we "must do" these things to get wiretaps. But in a more real sense, because wiretaps were done without doing those things; his statements are false. Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see how these statements are true at all.
I guess the difference is that the things he said we "must do" are necessary to stay on the legal side of things, but that wasn't a qualifier he made. Again, he said that wiretaps required a warrant, and yet that clearly wasn't true.
Posted by: Doctor Biobrain | December 20, 2005 at 01:44 PM
The fact that you don't classify the above examples as "lies" makes me think that all constitutional scholars have somehow missed the "President may do whatever they like" article of the constitution. Funny that.
Posted by: JEdgar | December 20, 2005 at 01:45 PM
These statements are egregious because they show that Bush was aware of the judicial ovesight requirement that he was circumventing in his repeated presidential order.
Posted by: baked potato | December 20, 2005 at 02:49 PM
"Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so."
I believe that quite clearly qualifies as a lie.
Posted by: Morpheus | December 20, 2005 at 02:55 PM
"Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so."
Morpheus: "I believe that quite clearly qualifies as a lie."
NO NO NO....they DID talk about getting a warrant. they just DIDN"T BOTHER! see its not a lie.
Posted by: Kevin from NYC | December 20, 2005 at 03:04 PM
The "need" and "must" are technically true in a legal sense-- if you don't get the court order, the taps are illegal, right? It's the same sense in which the statement "you have to drive 55 through here" is correct in a legalistic sense, even if you are going 100 mph at the time.
But I like the quotes that refer to "whenever we talk about wiretaps" and "whenever you hear about wiretaps"-- those quotes are technically true, because we didn't hear about, and they didn't talk about, the wiretaps that were done WITHOUT a court order. See? No lies here. Just the most dishonest and misleading administration in history.
Posted by: Jeff | December 20, 2005 at 04:00 PM
Great work compiling the profound words of our "Current Leader" on the subject of wiretaps.
For your next project, could you compile his comments on that piece of paper called the Constitution?
Posted by: Marty B. O'Malley | December 20, 2005 at 05:03 PM
Excellent job. Good work.
Posted by: HeyMan | December 20, 2005 at 07:53 PM
Saying that Bush was referring only to the Patriot Act, as Bush apologists are, is a lot like Clinton supporters arguing that he meant "no vaginal intercourse" -- but the stakes, of course, are immensely higher here. Future generations will be incredulous that Clinton was impeached and Bush was not.
Posted by: Declan | December 21, 2005 at 02:16 PM
He's quite clear to me that Bush says whatever's convenient to say at the time just to get people off his back. Probably some residual problem he had with his parents when he was little, but then, if he got caught in a lie, what was his punishment? Probably nothing.
He's clearly lied to the public, in my opinion. And he did because he probably thought he could get away with it just like he did when he was young. There's no two ways around it. And he lied it repeatedly. Case closed.
Posted by: David Williams | December 28, 2005 at 01:18 AM
Do you realize that the "chronology of technically true but misleading statements by President Bush" does not "imply court orders are required for all government wiretaps"
Of the seven statements only one, April 20, loosely implies this, but when placed in context with the rest of the statements you should conclude that the NSA does not require warrants to conduct wiretaps.
The reason is he distinctly is speaking of law enforcement. The NSA is not law enforcement. Read the NSA mission statement, strategic plan, and leadership structure, you will see the NSA is a military asset.
The Authorization to Use Military Force granted on Sept 14 2001 by congress granted the president “all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations or persons [the president] determines planned, authorized, committed or aided” the attacks of Sept. 11. This clearly grants him authority to use a miliatry asset, such the NSA, to conduct wiretaps on suspected terrorists operated inside the US.
It is not a matter of Semantics, only a matter of understanding the difference between military and law enforcement.
Posted by: Ronald Peters | January 10, 2006 at 02:07 AM
See the problem with Mr. Peters analysis is that a military asset cannot be used in the United States, unless there is an uprising or civil disorder, in which case, the National Guard is mobilized to help control the good order. Using the NSA against known terrorists, inside U.S. borders may be ok, but roving wiretaps against non terrorists, for example, average U.S. citizens, is why there is the FISA law and the
FISA Court. It should not excape Mr. Peters attention, but one of the FISA judges quit in protest of Bush's illegal spying, quoting, in part, that, if there was an urgent need to conduct surveillance, Bush guys could have gone back to the Court and retroactively asked for a warrant to justify the search. If this is so, why are people so willing to hold with Bush's view of plenary power without any check by the Judicial branch, whose job it is to ask for some justification for the warrant. Of course, if you are gong to spy en mass against the whole nation, obviously, you want to take Bush's position, that he has unbridled authority. But then, when you check his record of actions, he has a totally mad view of his position.
Posted by: Craig R. Leslie | January 11, 2006 at 11:54 AM
Excellent documentation of Bush's previous assurances that court orders were obtained for wiretaps. It exposes Bush as the disingenous liar he is and shows his utter contempt for the rule of law.
Posted by: Gavin (aka the Populist) | January 26, 2006 at 12:41 PM
This is excellent. Thank you very much for this, I'm sending as many people as possible here to read it.
Posted by: sponson | January 31, 2006 at 02:39 PM
Well done, my friend. One of the instances when bloggers really grasp the story well in advance of the rest of the "news".
Thanks.
Posted by: Brad | February 06, 2006 at 11:33 PM
"For years, law enforcement used so-called roving wire taps to investigate organized crime. You see, what that meant is if you got a wire tap by court order -- and, by the way, everything you hear about requires court order, requires there to be permission from a FISA court, for example."
Topic of this speech....
"President Bush Calls for Renewing the USA PATRIOT Act"
Posted by: scotth | February 07, 2006 at 02:25 AM
I'll openly admit that I'm probably from the opposite side of the political spectrum from most of you. But unlike some sites on both sides of the aisle, it looks like courtesy is the rule here. So I'll take a swing.
If I am subject to a law-enforcement wiretap (I'm talking garden-variety, pursuant to a warrant), and you call me or I call you, your end of the conversation is going to be monitored. You, however, are not the target of the monitoring, and it's unreasonable to suggest you've been "spied" on. I'VE been spied on, but it's all legal. A wiretap allows the monitoring agency to monitor all incoming and outgoing communications to or from the target, regardless of who the other party is.
To suggest that this works differently when the NSA wiretaps a terrorist (let the term include "suspected terrorist" and "terrorist associate") is to say that while the NSA can monitor all other communications of that terrorist without a warrant, if a call goes out to, or comes in from, the United States, the NSA either has to shut down the wiretap for the duration of the call, or (if they can go back in time) get a separate warrant covering each distinct U.S. person who calls or is called by the actual target of the surveillance. In other words, when monitoring an overseas terrorist who is not subject to Constitutional protections, we would actually have to get MORE warrants to cover all his communications than is required when monitoring a garden-variety domestic criminal. (That ignores the fact that such warrants would have to be gotten in real time, since you have no way of knowing in advance who the target is going to call or be called by. And, of course, that's impossible.) This strikes me as an absurd result. In a court, if a law can be construed two ways, and one of those ways would require an absurd result, the court will construe the law the other way -- because the assumption is that the legislature would not intend an absurd result.
I will grant that your side has slam-dunk, hands-down, no-question won the argument when you can show that the NSA, after monitoring communications to and from a targeted overseas terrorist, and having intercepted a call to or from a person in the U.S., subsequently targeted the U.S. person's OTHER communications (that is, made the U.S. person a target of surveillance in his own right) without getting a warrant. That hasn't even been alleged, let alone demonstrated.
I read an article this morning praising the high-mindedness of a FISA judge who refused to grant the FBI a warrant to monitor exactly that kind of U.S. person, because the probable cause for the warrant arose through the NSA program -- that is, this U.S. person called or was called by a targeted overseas terrorist, and the government determined that the content of that call justified targeting the U.S. person directly.
Rather than show the FISA judge's high-mindedness, it makes me seriously doubt her judgment. But more to the point, it shows that even in the context of fighting terrorism, when the government has wanted to target a U.S. person for surveillance, they've gone to court and gotten a warrant.
It doesn't bother me in the slightest that Bush would speak in absolutes about court orders for wiretaps when a) the context was domestic law enforcement and the PATRIOT Act, and b) the NSA program, a national-security (as opposed to law enforcement) program was highly, highly classified. In order for me to buy the "Bush lied" argument, he'd have to have explicitly addressed military intelligence in those statements, because I don't think a reasonable person would construe them to include military operations.
So, "Nothing has changed" seems perfectly accurate to me: When a warrant is required by law, the government requests one before beginning a wiretap; when a warrant isn't required (such as for the NSA to collect intelligence on overseas terrorists), they don't.
If anyone can point to unambiguous language addressing the situation where a foreign target of an intelligence wiretap calls or is called by a U.S. person, and can show where any law clearly requires a warrant for each person who communicates with such a foreign target, I will concede the argument. But there's a pretty high burden of proof on anyone who's claiming that such a ridiculous result is mandated by law, and nobody I know of has even remotely approached meeting it.
Posted by: Ken Crosson | February 10, 2006 at 01:17 PM
i think that bush could not do this just because hes president
Posted by: Peter Silkworth | February 22, 2006 at 08:08 PM
Do people think there will be any problem when a 'warrant' is needed? Maybe some laws have now changed in such a way, that now even a traffic-police-rookie can print-out a 'warrant' on his PDA, sign it and use it.
Or something like that...
Posted by: Erick S. | January 04, 2007 at 05:26 PM
He opened the laboratory. Ginnie, http://www.medstudents.co.uk/johansson >scarlett johansson interview all the cushion was too. Cmon big guy.
Posted by: govivxi | December 09, 2008 at 02:20 AM