Feel The Hum

by digby

March, 23rd. New York City – Today Sean Patrick Maloney, former senior Clinton White House official and investigative attorney running for the Democratic nomination for New York Attorney General, revealed a fresh idea to “legalize” the Bush Administration’s warrantless wiretapping program using a complaint that can be filed in federal court.

The complaint would seek a federal court order requiring the Bush Administration to comply with the law. The plan does not stop, compromise or hamper ongoing operations but instead compels the Bush Administration to appear in federal court, in secret session, to show cause for wiretapping any citizens of New York.

It is against New York state law to monitor communications over the phone without consent of the parties or without a court order. The benefit to New Yorkers, who cannot sue on their own behalf because the wiretapping is secret, is to initiate judicial oversight of the Bush Administration’s program.

Maloney said, “As a New Yorker, I am committed to stopping, capturing, punishing or killing the terrorists who target America for attack, but I am also committed to the rule of law in this country, or at least this state. George Bush is not above the law.

“My plan both fights terrorism and protects New Yorkers’ privacy from unauthorized or unconstitutional government intrusion. It does not compromise or halt ongoing anti-terror operations. It legalizes them. It’s clear the Bush Administration is operating outside of New York law without legal federal authority.”

There is recent case law and precedent for state attorneys general to act against federal actors who break state law and are acting outside of congressional authority. The Oregon Attorney General successfully sued then-United States Attorney General John Ashcroft, stopping him from undermining that state’s assisted suicide law (analogous to New York’s wiretapping law) without Congressional authorization to do so (as with the NSA’s actions here).

The Maloney campaign is supporting this idea with the first paid television ads of the campaign for Attorney General. Entitled “Good Question” the 30-second spot, which airs statewide starting today, makes the charge that the President is outside his authority in using warrantless wiretaps and is violating New York state law. In the ad, Sean Patrick Maloney asks, “The founding fathers didn’t trust George Washington with unlimited power, so why would we trust George Bush?”

Some Democrats are getting the idea that they might win by challenging the unpopular Bush’s assertions that the only way to deal with terrorism is to undermine the constitution. Not only is it the right thing to do, it’s good politics.

Remember, Brit Hume didn’t have an aneurysm about this on Fox News Sunday because he’s confident that the issue is a winner. He had an aneurysm because he’s afraid that it will turn out the Democratic base and lose his pals the congress.

Update: Nobody is going to believe this, but I actually wrote this post before I got the ad that is now appearing on the left sidebar. However, I honestly believe this is a great trend and I encourage New Yorkers and others to click through the ad and take a look.

People from all over the country, in different ways and using different approaches are challenging this adminstration’s lawlessness and abuse of power. It’s not enough to just win at the ballot box. A requirement that our leaders must adhere to the rule of law must be affirmed in no uncertain terms, and the specifics of Bush’s power grab must be repudiated.

Members of the Bush adminstration who were around in the 70’s and 80’s (the “grown-ups”) waited for many years to gain power and re-assert these principles of executive authority which we thought were succesfully legally proscribed (with laws such as FISA) after Nixon. They were wrong then and they are wrong now. These radical, undemocratic, unAmerican ideas need to have a final stake driven through them. This is not a monarchy, even at war.

.