I 'm probably missing your point somehow, aych, but when someone is pardoned for any crimes he might be indicted for in advance of any such indictments, couldn't that legitimately considered a pre-emptive pardon?

(My understanding was that Pres. Ford, et al. were concerned that without such a pardon, many would be tempted to seek an indictment of Nixon once his presidential immunity was no longer in force.)

http://www.billboardliberation.com/2008/02/28/the-blf-strike/

"AT&T works in more places, like NSA HEADQUARTERS"

The Billboard Liberation Front today announced a major new advertising improvement campaign executed on behalf of clients AT&T and the National Security Agency. Focusing on billboards in the San Francisco area, this improvement action is designed to promote and celebrate the innovative collaboration of these two global communications giants.

Video of the AT&T/NSA Improvement:

http://www.billboardliberation.com/2008/02/28/video-of-the-attnsa-improvement/

Quick Question I posted in your last post:

Just curious if the closing of Guantanamo is a done deal now? McCain spoke out against it big time during the debates, and I don't see Obama or Dead Horse Hillary keeping it open.

Doesn't seem to be anyone bringing this up. According to the rhetoric and the debates, all three candidates favor closing it. Is McCain going to flip-flop and keep it open? What about Obama or the Dead Horse?

Looks like the War Street Journal is wondering too:

http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2008/02/28/scientist-turn-gitmo-into-disease-research-center/?mod=googlenews_wsj

February 28, 2008, 2:07 pm

Scientist: Turn Gitmo Into Disease Research Center

Posted by Jacob Goldstein

Whatever happens in the presidential election this fall, it looks like the military prison at Guantanamo Bay isn’t long for this world: McCain, Obama and Clinton all favor closing it. So why not turn it into a center for tropical disease research, asks a tropical disease doc?

Seems to me like Guantanamo's fate should be sealed... we'll see.

Sorry for the redundancy. I should have waited to see if you would reply yourself. It just seemed puzzling to me that aych would make the distinction at all, not having mentioned indictments in his first comment.

When referring to "our enemies", Bush meant Bush's political enemies, like the ACLU.

The American people.WE are all terrorists as far as they are concerned.

I strongly believe that Bush is severely mentally ill and that he meets the criteria for being declared medically incompetent via the imminent harm to self and/or others criteria.

However, is there a duty by anyone to evaluate him, diagnose and treat him? To declare him unfit from a medical and a legal standpoint? As far as I can determine, if a person is declared mentally incompetent, they are held harmless if they signed contracts, and indeed, cannot sign if their condition is known. That's the principle by which patients may not signed informed consent after being administered sedatives or anesthetics, for example.

I am beginning to speculate that this might become a future defense of Bush when and if he is charged with crimes. His signing statements, treaties and executive orders could all come under this, at least from a civil perspective.

The Constitution speaks to removing the president from office, but it doesn't stipulate under what conditions. What ARE those conditions and how does the process work to have a president declared unfit for office?

Nixon had never been formally accused of anything, Weinberger had.

Not to mention that Ford had, at least to my knowledge, no part in the Watergate affair and so there was not an element of covering his own wrongdoing to the Nixon pardon.

Nixon was pardoned for generic "crimes" against the people of the USA.

Weinberger on the the other hand was accused of specific wrongdoing via an indictment.

Interesting that in all of these cases though, Nixon, Weinberger and now the telecoms, that it is Republicans (think "rule of law") who demand special treatment that steps outside the normal course of the law.

asaloner asked a question earlier that has not been answered yet:

You and others often make the claim that if the telecoms are given immunity we will never be able to find out what was being done because the lawsuits will be closed off. So, let me ask a naive question: Why can't the next president just reveal what happened?

Laws are still subject to repeal, are they not? We aren't talking about a constitutional amendment here, but Mr. Greenwald does imply that passage of telecom immunity is some kind of permanent, forever unfixable edict. If this is true, what exactly makes it so?

Bush's enemy is not the people of the US.

It's the courts. It's the courts he doesn't want seeing "how we conduct surveillance."

Watergate is often held up as an example of the system "working." Yet

(1) Nixon escaped when Ford pardoned him.

(2) No one now seems to want to follow the journalistic standards of the Post circa 1974.

Ondelette: I have had the beginnings of a similar line of thought, but you have fleshed it out to a much greater extent. I think a lot of this is explained by the distinction between "intelligence" and "evidence" where the right wing thinks only the latter is protected by the 4th amendment. Obviously one can easily craft a scenario where the police spy on a person until they get some hint of a crime, and then use what they already know about the person to construct "probable cause" to get a warrant to get the specific evidence they need to secure a conviction.

So yes, the unlimited intelligence model creates incentives for the state to do fishing expeditions and get good at crafting up plausible scenarios where the evidence they present in court isn't tossed out as poisoned fruit.

Also, I have to wonder more prosaically how many NSA employees eavesdrop on their wives or girlfriends, or supermodels they think are hot or whatnot. How may are listening to Bill Gate's phone calls hoping to get good stock tips? There are plenty of non-conspiratorial ways unlimited spying can be abused that don't involve the government setting out to create 1984.

Aya:

Not to mention that Ford had, at least to my knowledge, no part in the Watergate affair

Yeah well I suppose we'll never know for sure if there was a quid-pro-quo in Nixon's choice of Ford for VP. But yes, you are right that Bush I's pardons had more personal incentive to cover up his own crimes than Ford's pardon.