RADIO TIDBITS

Yesterday afternoon, Shammity crowed about former FISA judges approving of the illegal Bush plan to bypass. He specifically cited this passage from the Washington Times:

"If a court refuses a FISA application and there is not sufficient time for the president to go to the court of review, the president can under executive order act unilaterally, which he is doing now," said Judge Allan Kornblum, magistrate judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida and an author of the 1978 FISA Act. "I think that the president would be remiss exercising his constitutional authority by giving all of that power over to a statute."

Note the beginning dependent clause headed by "If." We have been told that the FISA process is too slow but we have not been told that the applications were turned down after an initial review. The judge seems to ignore the fact that Bush's EO bypasses FISA entirely and leaves the tapping decision up to an NSA shift supervisor:

GENERAL HAYDEN: The judgment is made by the operational work force at the National Security Agency using the information available to them at the time, and the standard that they apply -- and it's a two-person standard that must be signed off by a shift supervisor, and carefully recorded as to what created the operational imperative to cover any target, but particularly with regard to those inside the United States.

Shammity and the WashTimes conveniently left out this part of Judge Kornblum's testimony that strikes at the heart of Fredo's justification for tapping:

"I am very wary of inherent authority" claimed by presidents, testified U.S. Magistrate Judge Allan Kornblum. "It sounds very much like King George."