For those who haven’t yet seen it, here are the first set of the Rasmussen poll results regarding the NSA domestic “spying” story: Sixty-four percent (64%) of Americans believe the National Security Agency (NSA) should be allowed to intercept telephone conversations between terrorism suspects in other countries and people living in the United States. A Rasmussen Reports survey found that just 23% disagree. Sixty-eight percent (68%) of Americans say they

From the New York Times, “Defense Lawyers in Terror Cases Plan Challenges Over Spy Efforts”: Defense lawyers in some of the country’s biggest terrorism cases say they plan to bring legal challenges to determine whether the National Security Agency used illegal wiretaps against several dozen Muslim men tied to Al Qaeda. The lawyers said in interviews that they wanted to learn whether the men were monitored by the agency and,

In his commentary for RCP, Michael Barone weighs in on the NSA domestic “spying” story.  From

From the New York Times The National Security Agency has traced and analyzed large volumes of telephone and Internet communications flowing into and out of the United States as part of the eavesdropping program that President Bush approved after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to hunt for evidence of terrorist activity, according to current and former government officials. [Translation:  The NSA has performed the functions of the NSA] The volume

Glenn Greenwald has authored another long post arguing that Bush broke the law in authorizing the NSA warrantless surveillance program: (1) There is not a single bit of authority in any [the Hinderaker / DoJ arguments] for the absurd and dangerous proposition that the President has the right to violate a criminal law passed by Congress. Period. The Administration is trotting out lawyers to make legalistic arguments designed to cloud

Powerline’s John Hinderaker has a long and meticulously argued post that agrees in large measure with my earlier post, and with the assessments of Messrs Cass Sunstein, Richard Posner, and Clinton associate attorney general John Schmidt, From “On the Legality of the NSA Electronic Intercept Program”: […] Finally, in 2002, the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review decided Sealed Case No. 02-001. This case arose out of a

U of Chicago law professor Cass Sunstein, on Bush’s NSA program: The discussion of wiretapping by the President, without court approval, raises a number of important and interesting legal issues. According to CNN, Attorney General Gonzales recently said, “There were many people, many lawyers within the administration who advised the president that he had an inherent authority as commander in chief under the Constitution to engage in” this kind of

From the AP: Attorneys for television talk show host David Letterman want a judge to quash a restraining order granted to a Santa Fe woman who contends the celebrity used code words to show that he wanted to marry her and train her as his co-host. A state judge granted a temporary restraining order to Colleen Nestler, who alleged in a request filed last Thursday that Letterman has forced her

John Cole works himself into quite a state today over an LA Times story he believes suggests that the President may have “lied”—a pronouncement upon which John’s commentariat pounces like snappy terriers on a bloody lamb shank. John’s outrage, he tells us, stems from his provisional acceptance of the facts cited in this LA Times story, facts that, if true, would make statements Bush made about the NSA “spy” program

Clinton associate attorney general John Schmidt, writing in the Chicago Tribune (h/t Charles Martin): Sept. 11, 2001, authorization to the National Security Agency to carry out electronic surveillance into private phone calls and e-mails is consistent with court decisions and with the positions of the Justice Department under prior presidents. The president authorized the NSA program in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks on America. An identifiable group, Al Qaeda,