Gore: Bush does 'excessive power grab'

There's many blogs that reported that CNN didn't report on Al Gore's speech today. I don't know if this was put on the site to silence the complaints or if they were just slow to do it. Either way here it is.

Gore delivered an excellent speech about the excesses Emperor Bush has given himself since he became president. In short he declared the Constitution is at risk.

CNN reports:

Former Vice President Al Gore called on Congress and the public to resist what he called "a gross and excessive power grab" by the Bush administration amid the war on terrorism, declaring that "our Constitution is at risk."

Gore said the use of the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans without a court order shows that President Bush "has been breaking the law repeatedly and persistently."

"A president who breaks the law is a threat to the very structure of our government," he said.

Gore, Bush's Democratic opponent in the bitter 2000 election, spoke to the Liberty Coalition, which calls itself a "transpartisan" group concerned with civil liberty and privacy issues.

Bush has defended his use of the NSA to intercept international communications of people in the United States suspected of having links to terrorist groups, telling reporters the program is legal and necessary to fight terrorism. The president and other top officials argue that Congress gave him the power to act without the approval of a special panel of judges established by Congress under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978.

Sen. Arlen Specter, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has disputed that assertion.

He disputes it a little. HE doesn't even think Bush will get a slap on the wrist for it. Here, read this.

Gore said lawmakers specifically refused to give Bush that power when they authorized the use of force after the September 11, 2001, attacks.

Gore said the wiretaps -- combined with Bush's assertion of the power to hold American citizens indefinitely as "enemy combatants," the authorization of harsh treatment of prisoners and his use of signing statements to declare how he will interpret a law passed by Congress -- have "brought our republic to the brink of a dangerous breach in the fabric of the Constitution."

"The disrespect embodied in these apparent mass violations of the law is part of a larger pattern of seeming indifference to the Constitution that is deeply troubling to millions of Americans in both political parties," he said.

Republicans responded by saying that he's out to get attention. I say yeah he's out to get attention. Attention to the fact that we're all about to live in a dictator run police state unless we do something about it, NOW!

The rest of the article can be found here:
CNN.com - Gore: Bush does 'excessive power grab' - Jan 16, 2006

Technorati tags: Bush, Gore, Democrat, Republican, Scandal, Wiretap