ACLU say Bush authorised domestic spying illegal

Not surprisingly, the ACLU have issued a strongly worded statement, saying that President Bush was acting illegally in issuing an order "allowing the National Security Agency to monitor without a warrant the international (and sometimes domestic) telephone calls and e-mail messages of hundreds or thousands of citizens and legal residents inside the United States." They say this surveillance is "clearly illegal", though President Bush, Richard Posner and others would, no doubt, disagree. The ACLU go on to say:

"Unfortunately, although the law in this matter is crystal clear, many Americans, faced with President Bush's bold assertions of "inherent" authority for these actions, will not know what to believe. There are only 5 points they need to understand:

Point #1: Electronic surveillance by the Government is strictly limited by the Constitution and Federal Law...

Point #2: There are only three laws that permit the government to spy...

Point #3: The Bush-NSA spying was not authorized by any of these laws...

Point #4: Congress's post-9/11 use-of-force resolution does not legitimize the Bush-NSA spying...

Point #5: The need for quick action does not justify an end-run around the courts

Put like that there are some serious questions for the Bush administration to answer.