In this issue:
1. An
Exceptional Year
2. Another One
Bites the Dust
3. Unnatural Gas
Lines
4. Quick
Hits
5. New at Reason
Online - Annus Horribilis
6. News and
Events
The Bush administration continues to bank on exceptionalism carrying the day in its unfolding wiretapping scandal. That the exceptional threat posed by terrorism gives the office of the president exceptional powers to act is the basic outline of the White House argument. Except not everyone in the administration bought that argument, even as existing wiretap review procedures were being bypassed.
It is clear that there was some dissent at the Justice Department in 2004 about continuing the practice of turning the NSA loose on domestic terror targets without first running the idea by a judge somewhere. What was initially a variation on a "hot pursuit" argument for the program in 2001, that there just was not enough time to comply with the law, had morphed into an "inherent power of the presidency" argument. That is quite a bit different from a supposed ticking time-bomb scenario where timely intelligence is vital to stop terror.
To illustrate, a county sheriff might chase a suspect into a neighboring county and arrest him even though, usually, the sheriff would not have jurisdiction there. Everyone understands that there is a time constraint at work. But no one would claim that the chasing sheriff now also had jurisdiction in the neighboring county just by virtue of holding the office or that the laws governing arrest powers no longer apply. Yet that is exactly the kind of claim the White House makes with regard to surveillance of terror suspects.
The Bush administration is saying that a temporary hot pursuit green-light is not enough, that any judicial oversight of presidential action in the War on Terror is unacceptable and, evidently, unconstitutional. And that is an exceptionally bold position to take.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/10663996/site/newsweek/
Reason Express is made possible by a grant from GlobalDrive, the world leader in globally-accessible data storage. Want to share files with co-workers or friends? Don't want to shlep your laptop to Europe? Worried about a safe place to store your computer's backups? Give GlobalDrive a try! Privacy. Protection. Security. Sharable. And from only $40/year.
Say goodbye to Independence Air, yet another airline to stop flying. Indy Air is gone after only about 18 months of existence as a low-fare carrier, which might be some sort of record.
Editor's Note: We invite comments and request that they be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of Reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment for any reason at any time.