Posted by Orin Kerr:
George Will on NSA Surveillance Program:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2006_02_12-2006_02_18.shtml#1140145596
George Will has a column today criticizing the Bush Administration's
defense of the NSA domestic surveillance program: [1]No Checks, Many
Imabalances. An excerpt:
[T]errorism is not the only new danger of this era. Another is
the administration's argument that because the president is
commander in chief, he is the "sole organ for the nation in foreign
affairs." That non sequitur is refuted by the Constitution's plain
language, which empowers Congress to ratify treaties, declare war,
fund and regulate military forces, and make laws "necessary and
proper" for the execution of all presidential powers . Those powers
do not include deciding that a law -- FISA, for example -- is
somehow exempted from the presidential duty to "take care that the
laws be faithfully executed."
The administration, in which mere obduracy sometimes serves as
political philosophy, pushes the limits of assertion while
disdaining collaboration.
Will ends the column by calling on Congress to amend FISA to make the
NSA program legal: "It should do so with language that does not
stigmatize what [the Executive Branch] has been doing, but that
implicitly refutes the doctrine that the authorization is
superfluous."
Thanks to [2]Crooked Timber for the link.
References
1.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/15/AR2006021502003.html
2. http://crookedtimber.org/2006/02/16/slap-shots/
_______________________________________________
Volokh mailing list
[email protected]
http://highsorcery.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/volokh
