former Bush Justice Department official John Yoo tells Heritage Foundation on Wednesday that "the President has a 'choice' about whether to follow" the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. "FISA 'says, 'Look, you have a choice. If you work through FISA, then you can use the fruits of those searches in criminal prosecution.' By contrast, if a President 'doesn't follow FISA and still collects the information, it's doubtful it will be admitted. That's a choice presidents have to make.'"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/22/AR2006022202306.html A War of Words: 'Declare' vs. 'Make' and Its Allies
By Dana Milbank
Thursday, February 23, 2006; Page A02
For generations, civics students have learned that the Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war. Yesterday, the man who built the legal underpinnings of the Bush administration's terrorism strategy revised the curriculum.
John Yoo, the former Justice Department official whose writings justified the administration's treatment of military prisoners and the National Security Agency eavesdropping program, announced that Congress's warmaking powers are just a figment of the "popular imagination."
"Almost all the prominent scholars who believe that Congress should play a prominent role in foreign policy look to the 'declare war' clause as the source of Congress's power," Yoo said, 10 minutes into his talk at the Heritage Foundation. "They appeal to a very common-sense reading of the declare-war clause," he continued, and "I think in the popular imagination, declaring war does seem to equate with making war or starting war."
That is, indeed, the prevailing view. But it is not Yoo's. "I don't think if you look at the constitutional text carefully that it carries that expansive reach," he asserted. "Note that the declare-war clause uses the word 'declare.' It doesn't use the word 'begin,' 'make,' 'authorize,' 'wage' or 'commence' war." Thus did Yoo reduce Congress's warmaking authority to a ceremonial role, much like its authority to declare a national Boy Scout recognition month.<snip>