Gonzales attempts to set frightening precedent...

[mburbank]

in wiretap case.

Such wiretaps are legal, Gonzales told CNN, because the president received the authority when Congress passed a measure in the days after the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, authorizing him to "use all necessary and appropriate force" to fight terrorism.

Okay, follow my logic here and see if I'm making any mistakes.

The AT General is saying the Presa. can authorize anything he wants, laws or no, if it's 'appropriatte' in fighting terror.

But the administration has eliminated all oversite from the other two branches of government. So they don't have to show anybody evidence that anything they do has a connection in any way to the war on terror. US citizens could be spied on, abducted, imprisoned, their property siezed, they could be killed under this argument and we would have to take the word of the administration that it was in some way connected to the war on terror. AND they are stating, that the authority to diobey any and all laws solely on their own say so was purposefully granted them by congress. That in effect congress gave the executive branch permanent, unquestionable authority over the law, and that from now on the American people would simply need to trust them.

Suppose, for the sake of argument, this administration decides that it would be 'appropriatte ' and 'neccesary' to fix all electronic voting machines so that a Democrat candidate could not win the election. Since a Democrat might deicde to pull American troops out of Iraq, and the President has stated unequivically that Iraq is the front line of the wr on terror, I can see nothing at all in Gonzales argument that would prevent it.

And because the administration has granted it the right to erase the balance of powers in the war on terror, the American people must take on faith that these far ranging powers will not be abused.