14 constitutional scholars and former government official have written to Congress outlineing their belief that President Bush's authorisation of the NSA domestic spying practices was illegal. It's fairly dense with legal analysis, as you might expect but worth reading at least the introduction and conclusion:
"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.
Sincerely,
Curtis A. Bradley
Richard and Marcy Horvitz Professor of Law, Duke University*
Former Counselor on International Law in the State Department Legal Adviser's Office, 2004
David Cole
Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center
Walter Dellinger
Douglas Blount Maggs Professor of Law, Duke University
Former Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel,1993-1996
Former Acting Solicitor General of the United States, 1996-97
Ronald Dworkin
Frank Henry Sommer Professor, New York University Law School
Richard Epstein
James Parker Hall Distinguished Service Professor, University of Chicago Law School
Peter and Kirsten Bedford Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution
Harold Hongju Koh
Dean and Gerard C. and Bernice Latrobe Smith Professor of International Law, Yale Law School
Former Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor 1998-2001
Former Attorney-Adviser, Office of Legal Counsel, DOJ, 1983-85
Philip B. Heymann
James Barr Ames Professor, Harvard Law School
Former Deputy Attorney General, 1993-94
Martin S. Lederman
Visiting Professor, Georgetown University Law Center
Former Attorney Advisor, Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel, 1994-2002
Beth Nolan
Former Counsel to the President, 1999-2001; Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel, 1996-1999; Associate Counsel to the President, 1993-1995; Attorney Advisor, Office of Legal Counsel, 1981-1985
William S. Sessions
Former Director, FBI
Former Chief United States District Judge, Western District of Texas
Geoffrey R. Stone
Harry Kalven, Jr. Distinguished Service Professor of Law, University of Chicago
Former Dean of the University of Chicago Law School and Provost of the University of Chicago
Kathleen M. Sullivan
Stanley Morrison Professor, Stanford Law School
Former Dean, Stanford Law School
Laurence H. Tribe
Carl M. Loeb University Professor and Professor of Constitutional Law
Harvard Law School
William W. Van Alstyne
Lee Professor, William and Mary Law School
Former Attorney, Department of Justice, 1958"
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