Gonzales response to Leahy question on opening citizens' mail

[benEzra]

Did anyone else notice how Gonzales qualified his answer?

http://doverbitch.blogspot.com/2007/01/gonzales-what-witness.html

SEN. LEAHY: Does the president believe he has the inherent Constitutional authority to open Americans' mail without a warrant?

AG GONZALES: Sir, that... Now, you're asking me to get to an analysis, quite frankly, that the department has not done and what I would point you to is the Justice Jackson's analysis under Youngstown in terms of looking at the inherent authority of the president, looking at the inherent authority of Congress...

SEN LEAHY: But if you take...

AG GONZALES: ...and weighing those.

SEN LEAHY: If you take Youngstown, we laid out pretty clearly what the authority is following the Church Committee and FISA and everything else. Do you think the president has the authority under the AUMF, notwithstanding the requirements of the FISA Statute?

AG GONZALES: Sir, I'm not prepared to answer that question. I think for purposes of today's hearing, I think it's important for everyone to note that the pres... as far as I know... there is no ongoing physical searches of mail under the authorization...

Senator Leahy apparently didn't notice the qualification. Gonzales said that there were no ongoing PHYSICAL searches of mail. He didn't say that there were no ongoing searches (it would be easy to read a letter through the envelope via a millimeter wave camera or multispectral imager and some basic image reconstruction software), just no PHYSICAL searches, i.e. there is no "ongoing" effort to physically open envelopes and seal them again.

This may mean absolutely nothing, but it struck me as odd that Gonzales would qualify his answer as pertaining to physical searches rather than any searches. Am I being tinfoil hattish?

I think if I had been Sen. Leahy, I'd have asked him about nonphysical searches just to see, but I dunno.

[The Count]

1. You are not tinfoilhattish. Gonzalez is a lawyer. His word parsing matters.

It may mean that for now they are just getting organized and didn't get to the letter opening just yet.

[msongs]

2. think the worst, then multiply that times 100. will dems wise up in time? nt

[BOSSHOG]

3. And "as far as I know"

So in other words the chief law enforcement officer in the country did not answer the senators question.

[Frustratedlady]

4. It may just be me, but I didn't think he answered a LOT of questions.

I felt he spent more time wigglin' his way around the questions than being forthright and honest.

Did anyone catch his statement when he changed or clarified an answer..."since I'm under oath, let me...."? I forget what the question/answer was, but I found that interesting.