WP: Ex-Justice Lawyer Rips Case for Spying

[UpInArms]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/08/AR2006030802360.html?referrer=email&referrer=email&referrer=email

A former senior national security lawyer at the Justice Department is highly critical of some of the Bush administration's key legal justifications for warrantless spying, saying that many of the government's arguments are weak and unlikely to be endorsed by the courts, according to documents released yesterday.

David S. Kris, a former associate deputy attorney general who now works at Time Warner Inc., concludes that a National Security Agency domestic spying program is clearly covered by a 1978 law governing clandestine surveillance, according to a legal analysis and e-mails sent to current Justice officials.

Kris, who oversaw national security issues at Justice from 2000 until he left the department in 2003, also wrote that the Bush administration's contention that Congress had authorized the NSA program by approving the use of force against al-Qaeda was a "weak justification" unlikely to be supported by the courts.

The criticism represents an unusual public dissent by a former administration official over the legality of the domestic spying program, which allows the NSA to intercept international communications involving U.S. citizens and residents without warrants. The program, approved by President Bush in October 2001, was first revealed publicly in media reports in December and has been the focus of furious political battles since then.

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