For those of you who haven't been keeping up with the finer points of the growing NSA wiretapping scandal (and if you are one of those people shame on you! This may not feel like a constitutional crisis, but it without a doubt is), Glenn Greenwald has an excellent post today that compiles links to all of the various legal analyses he has done since the story first broke. Altogether it is quite a read, but if there's any part of this story that you are unclear about, today's post will be an invaluable resource.
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Short version? Glenn's got that too:
| Ultimately, though, the entire legal debate in the NSA scandal comes down to these few, very clear and straightforward facts: Congress passed a law in 1978 making it a criminal offense to eavesdrop on Americans without judicial oversight. Nobody of any significance ever claimed that that law was unconstitutional. The Administration not only never claimed it was unconstitutional, but Bush expressly asked for changes to the law in the aftermath of 9/11, thereafter praised the law, and misled Congress and the American people into believing that they were complying with the law. In reality, the Administration was secretly breaking the law, and then pleaded with The New York Times not to reveal this. Once caught, the Administration claimed it has the right to break the law and will continue to do so. |
It's still mind blowing to me that so-called conservatives can defend this behavior.
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