So, I Wonder how Bush feels about The Bill of Rights ?

DECEMBER 16, 2005
ACLU Praises Senate For Standing for Freedom, Rejecting White House Pressure; Calls Cloture Vote a Victory for Civil Liberties

WASHINGTON - December 16 - "Today, fair-minded Senators stood firm in their commitment to the Constitution and rejected the White House’s call to pass a faulty law," said Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. "The Senate was our last, best hope to preserve our fundamental freedoms, and it did not fail. The Senators who voted to continue debate saw through the empty rhetoric and dismissed the notion that this damaged bill was in the best interests of the country. This was a victory for the privacy and liberty of all Americans."
The ACLU noted that Senators from both parties vowed to continue to press for reforms and stood up for the protection of the fundamental freedoms of all Americans. 47 Senators voted against cloture, and both Democrats and Republicans spoke passionately about the need to protect ordinary Americans from government misuse of these broad powers governed by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Many pointed to evidence that the secret records search powers expanded by the Patriot Act are being used with increasing frequency to gather the financial and Internet transaction records of innocent Americans.
The motion for cloture failed only hours after the New York Times revealed that the White House had directed the National Security Agency (NSA) to spy on people in the United States in violation of the FISA law. Congress passed the FISA rules in response to revelations during the Nixon administration of NSA spying on Americans on these shores in contravention of Fourth Amendment rights.
Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI), who was the lone Senator to oppose the Patriot Act in 2001, and John Sununu (R-NH) led the Senate’s opposition. Others instrumental in the vote against the cloture motion were Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Harry Reid (D-NV), Ted Kennedy (D-MA), Larry Craig (R-ID), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Ken Salazar (D-CO), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Chuck Hegel (R-NE), Max Baucus (D-MT), Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Carl Levin (D-MI).
Had opponents of Patriot reform succeeded, their version of the bill would have allowed the government to continue seizing law-abiding Americans' most sensitive personal records without requiring a link between the records sought and a suspected foreign terrorist. It would also have left in place the automatic gag order that makes it difficult to challenge the government's secret record demands. The ACLU and its bipartisan allies, along with 400 communities, including seven states, continue to call for meaningful changes to be made. Also contained in the legislation is a proposal to revisit two Patriot Act powers in 2009. The ACLU urged lawmakers to renew negotiations to ensure that precious anti-terrorism resources are not wasted on innocent Americans unconnected to a suspected terrorist.
"The White House used every means to protect easy access by the FBI to the private information of innocent Americans unconnected to suspected foreign terrorists," said Lisa Graves, ACLU Senior Counsel for Legislative Strategy. "Today’s vote is a beacon of hope for the continuing vitality of our Bill of Rights. As Congress continues its examination of the Patriot Act, it must add common sense protections to preserve our privacy. Americans from across the political spectrum insist that this law be reformed so America will both be safe and free."

source: www.commondreams.org
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Bush on the Constitution: 'It's just a goddamned piece of paper'
By DOUG THOMPSON
Dec 9, 2005, 07:53

Last month, Republican Congressional leaders filed into the Oval Office to meet with President George W. Bush and talk about renewing the controversial USA Patriot Act.
Several provisions of the act, passed in the shell shocked period immediately following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, caused enough anger that liberal groups like the American Civil Liberties Union had joined forces with prominent conservatives like Phyllis Schlafly and Bob Barr to oppose renewal.
GOP leaders told Bush that his hardcore push to renew the more onerous provisions of the act could further alienate conservatives still mad at the President from his botched attempt to nominate White House Counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.
“I don’t give a goddamn,” Bush retorted. “I’m the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way.”
“Mr. President,” one aide in the meeting said. “There is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution.”
“Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,” Bush screamed back. “It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!”
I’ve talked to three people present for the meeting that day and they all confirm that the President of the United States called the Constitution “a goddamned piece of paper.”
And, to the Bush Administration, the Constitution of the United States is little more than toilet paper stained from all the shit that this group of power-mad despots have dumped on the freedoms that “goddamned piece of paper” used to guarantee.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, while still White House counsel, wrote that the “Constitution is an outdated document.”
Put aside, for a moment, political affiliation or personal beliefs. It doesn’t matter if you are a Democrat, Republican or Independent. It doesn’t matter if you support the invasion or Iraq or not. Despite our differences, the Constitution has stood for two centuries as the defining document of our government, the final source to determine – in the end – if something is legal or right.
Every federal official – including the President – who takes an oath of office swears to “uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States."
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia says he cringes when someone calls the Constitution a “living document.”
“"Oh, how I hate the phrase we have—a 'living document,’” Scalia says. “We now have a Constitution that means whatever we want it to mean. The Constitution is not a living organism, for Pete's sake.”
As a judge, Scalia says, “I don't have to prove that the Constitution is perfect; I just have to prove that it's better than anything else.”
President Bush has proposed seven amendments to the Constitution over the last five years, including a controversial amendment to define marriage as a “union between a man and woman.” Members of Congress have proposed some 11,000 amendments over the last decade, ranging from repeal of the right to bear arms to a Constitutional ban on abortion.
Scalia says the danger of tinkering with the Constitution comes from a loss of rights.
“We can take away rights just as we can grant new ones,” Scalia warns. “Don't think that it's a one-way street.”
And don’t buy the White House hype that the USA Patriot Act is a necessary tool to fight terrorism. It is a dangerous law that infringes on the rights of every American citizen and, as one brave aide told President Bush, something that undermines the Constitution of the United States.
But why should Bush care? After all, the Constitution is just “a goddamned piece of paper.”

source: http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_7779.shtml