Wednesday, March 29, 2006
NSA Wiretaps Still Illegal w/o (FISA) Warrant `
For anyone who entertains the question of whether the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping conducted by the NSA is legal, a definitive position is available from a group of 14 constitutional law scholars. I refer you to the The New York Review of Books: ON NSA SPYING: A LETTER TO CONGRESS.
In digesting the legal arguments, first job is to figure out what law(s) govern the case. The default answer is always the Constitution, because it governs all other laws. But I defy anyone to read the text (and caselaw) of FISA and determine that it is not governing. That is because it declares itself to be the "exclusive means by which electronic surveillance...may be conducted" including provisions for additional (but still limited) wartime authority and a system of checks/balances in the form of the FISA courts.
Good reading.
In digesting the legal arguments, first job is to figure out what law(s) govern the case. The default answer is always the Constitution, because it governs all other laws. But I defy anyone to read the text (and caselaw) of FISA and determine that it is not governing. That is because it declares itself to be the "exclusive means by which electronic surveillance...may be conducted" including provisions for additional (but still limited) wartime authority and a system of checks/balances in the form of the FISA courts.
Good reading.
