Law professors to Congress: Bush is violating federal law

[usregimechange]

Dear Members of Congress:

We are scholars of constitutional law and former government officials. We write in our individual capacities as citizens concerned by the Bush administration's National Security Agency domestic spying program, as reported in The New York Times, and in particular to respond to the Justice Department's December 22, 2005, letter to the majority and minority leaders of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees setting forth the administration's defense of the program. Although the program's secrecy prevents us from being privy to all of its details, the Justice Department's defense of what it concedes was secret and warrantless electronic surveillance of persons within the United States fails to identify any plausible legal authority for such surveillance. Accordingly the program appears on its face to violate existing law.
...

In conclusion, the DOJ letter fails to offer a plausible legal defense of the NSA domestic spying program. If the administration felt that FISA was insufficient, the proper course was to seek legislative amendment, as it did with other aspects of FISA in the Patriot Act, and as Congress expressly contemplated when it enacted the wartime wiretap provision in FISA. One of the crucial features of a constitutional democracy is that it is always open to the President—or anyone else—to seek to change the law. But it is also beyond dispute that, in such a democracy, the President cannot simply violate criminal laws behind closed doors because he deems them obsolete or impracticable.

We hope you find these views helpful to your consideration of the legality of the NSA domestic spying program.

Curtis Bradley, Duke Law School, former Counselor on International Law in the State Department Legal Adviser's Office

David Cole, Georgetown University Law Center

Walter Dellinger, Duke Law School, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel and Acting Solicitor General

Ronald Dworkin, NYU Law School

Richard Epstein, University of Chicago Law School, Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution

Philip B. Heymann, Harvard Law School, former Deputy Attorney General

Harold Hongju Koh, Dean, Yale Law School, former Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, former Attorney-Adviser, Office of Legal Counsel, DOJ

Martin Lederman, Georgetown University Law Center, former Attorney-Adviser, Office of Legal Counsel, DOJ

Beth Nolan, former Counsel to the President and Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel

William S. Sessions, former Director, FBI, former Chief United States District Judge

Geoffrey Stone, Professor of Law and former Provost, University of Chicago

Kathleen Sullivan, Professor and former Dean, Stanford Law School

Laurence H. Tribe, Harvard Law School

William Van Alstyne, William & Mary Law School, former Justice Department attorney

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18650

[bridgit]

1. they forgot to mention that he is proud of it too...

[PWRinNY]

2. This needs to be publicized

Americans need to know this.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

4. Email it to KO.... he just may "publicize it". nt.

[lonestarnot]

3. And they forgot to mention that he continues to break the law and he gona

dude it anyhow!

[rodeodance]

5. and he is breaking gods/mohamonds/etc Law--Thou shalt not LIE>

[CAG]

6. Oh, come on, Laura says its all OK.... these are a bunch of librul's

nt

[Mnemosyne]

7. And he brags about it

on national television. I'm pleased he's giving the prosecution his public confession, it will save us taxpayers some money after all he and his accomplices have stolen. :evilgrin:

[Justice Is Comin]

8. Get over to the Conyers hearing Thursday

Just show up! The hell with the invitation. You don't even need one. Conyers will roll out the red carpet for you and get you all the mikes you need.

Just get over there.

[usregimechange]

9. kick

[enough]

10. kick

[greiner3]

11. I like santorum's view;

He'll hold hearings, but there was nothing wrong with B***'s deeds so we don't even have to bring up the I word. That killed me!

[Booster]

12. Who will be the first Congress critter, either Dem or Repug, who

says "I never saw that letter"?