Fergie's Tech Blog

'More Calls to Pizza Hut'

Over on the Reform the Patriot Act blog:

Today, the Justice Department released a 42-page defense of the program, intended to rebut the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service report concluding the program was likely illegal.

Robert Reinstein, dean at Temple Law School, puts it in perspective in the above article:

[T]he eavesdropping program [is] "a pretty straightforward case where the president is acting illegally," and he said there appeared to be a broad consensus among legal scholars and national security experts that the administration's legal arguments were weak.

The foreign intelligence law passed by Congress in 1978 represents the Bush administration's biggest legal hurdle, Reinstein said, adding "When Congress speaks on questions that are domestic in nature, I really can't think of a situation where the president has successfully asserted a constitutional power to supersede that."

posted by Fergie @ 1/20/2006 04:14:00 PM