If there is a legitimate need to curtail human rights to fight terrorists, then the authority to do so should be narrowly tailored, debated by the full Congress, codified in law, and subject to judicial review.
I have little doubt that the NSA could have obtained the authority to review phone records if the issue had been brought to Congress after
9/11, considering what other authority was granted to various executive departments in the so-called Patriot Act.What offends me is not that particular surveillance technique, but rather this Administration's habit of engaging in any number of activities without any legal authority, any meaningful Congressional oversight, or any chance for judicial review.
We're supposed to have a President, not a King, one of three
*co-equal* branches of government.A generation from now, people will look back on the excesses of the Bush Administration with as much shame and disbelief as we do today looking back on the Japanese concentration camps of WW II or the imposition of jail sentences for people who spoke German in public during WW I.
snipped-for-privacy@phred.org is Joshua Putnam