New at Reason

Tim Cavanaugh | February 7, 2006

Julian Sanchez listens in on the attorney general's legal explanations of the domestic spying program, and hears nothing pertinent to constitutional authority.

Comments

|2.7.06 @ 5:21PM|#

On the ID for Sen. Jeff Session, it's supposed to be (R-Ala.), not (R-Alab.), assuming you're trying to use AP style. That's the second times it's been used incorrectly here this week. Even when we're blasting such an easy target, let's get AP style right. :-)

|2.7.06 @ 5:39PM|#

Well, snap, guess I just got taken to the AP Stylebook woodshed...

Larry A|2.7.06 @ 6:04PM|#

On the ID for Sen. Jeff Session, it's supposed to be (R-Ala.), not (R-Alab.),

Then AP style sucks, as he could be from Alabama or Alaska.

|2.7.06 @ 6:17PM|#

I usually think of myself as okay smart, but I find myself more confused by this subject every time I think about it.

1) Did the executive or did he not, prior to FISA, have the authority to warrantlessly monitor electronic communications with one end in the United States and the other in Parts Unknown?

2) If the executive had such power, was it an extension of wartime powers? If so, do you have to declare war to get such powers? Does AUMF count as an act identical to a declaration of war?

3) If the executive had such power under the constitution, can FISA have ever legitimately have restricted the executive?

|2.7.06 @ 6:37PM|#

Larry, Alaska is one of eight states which are never abbreviated in AP style. Just in case you were wondering. ;-)

|2.7.06 @ 7:47PM|#

I found the most telling section of this whole thing when the discussion came to what happens under FISA if you don't get everything right. (As I understood the conversation) Under FISA, the person you have been listening to for the last 72 hours without a warrant gets to know about it if your warrant application doesn't meet the probable cause criteria. This, I think, is the nub of the Bush program. They would say they are afraid of not getting it right and tipping off someone who really is a terrorist. I would say they are afraid of the backlash from non-terrorists who get caught up in fishing expeditions.

|2.8.06 @ 2:17AM|#

Anon, this is the blogosphere, we aren't bound by the conventions of the moribund MSM. If you can't live out here on the edge with us, abbreviating state names as we please, take your security blanket and your AP style manual and hide under your bed where you belong.

|2.8.06 @ 5:02AM|#

Jesus, what kind of pussy/wanker uses the name Anon? And according to AP style, shouldn't it be Anon.?

So Julian, did they ever catch that guy who broke in your roommate's window?

|2.8.06 @ 9:22AM|#

This is D.C. I don't think they even bother trying to catch them for anything short of murder.

amazingdrx|2.8.06 @ 11:25AM|#

Anon, are you a victim of OCD? "'Bama" should be the new abreviation for "the switchgrass state".

Peter K.|2.8.06 @ 5:42PM|#

Excellent piece. "A program that might never make it through Congress if both houses had to explicitly approve it might nevertheless prove politically impossible to halt once underway." That nails it. But it's interesting Republican Rep. Heather Wilson came out for more Congressional busy-bodyness even though it will remind all of the stupid, unfocused terrorists the US is keeping tabs on them.

Speaking of stupid, who cares that George Washington used electronic wiretapping? I mean, the Internets weren't even around back then.