<<So if you think your smarter than this guy>Robert F. Turner co-founder of t…

The NSA is using technology and techniques similar to what Google uses in Gmail. With Gmail, Google uses content extraction to scan an email and obtain the “concepts” of the email. Google then displays ads on the page related to those conc…

So I tried my hand at some amatuer legal analysis when the president’s spying analysis came out but now I think it is time we heard from some real professionals. While it does seem the claim that Bush’s spying orders violated the 4th ammend…

This past Thursday, the New York Times exposed the most significant violation of federal surveillance law in the post-Watergate era. President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to engage in domestic spying, wiretapping thousands of …

This past Thursday, the New York Times exposed the most significant violation of federal surveillance law in the post-Watergate era. President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to engage in domestic spying, wiretapping thousands of …

“The Truong court, as did all the other courts to have decided the issue, held that the President did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information. It was incumbent upon the court, therefore, to determine the boundaries of that constitutional authority in the case before it. We take for granted that the President does have that authority and, assuming that is so, FISA could not encroach on the President’s constitutional power.”

In re Sealed Case, 310 F.3d 717, 742 (FICR 2002). Perhaps the argument is not as dubious as you suggest?

When President Bush directed the National Security Agency to secretly eavesdrop on American citizens, he transferred an authority previously under the purview of the Justice Department to the Defense Department and bypassed the very laws put in place t…

When President Bush directed the National Security Agency to secretly eavesdrop on American citizens, he transferred an authority previously under the purview of the Justice Department to the Defense Department and bypassed the very laws put in place t…

The New York Times has this article on the fact that, despite a Supreme Court holding prohibiting the execution of the mentally retarded, the Fifth Circuit has held that a Texas death row inmate who may be retarded cannot raise…

The constitutional question posed by the Executive’s wiretapping of U.S. citizens is not whether it has the power to wiretap citizens’ communications at all–it surely does under appropriate circumstances–but whether that power must be constrained by judicial oversight (either through a FISA court or some other neutral magistrate). In other words, the question is akin to the judicial review question in Hamdi (may courts review the enemy combatant designation?), not the does-the-power-exist question at issue in Padilla (does the president have the power to seize US citizens as ECs within the US?).

The answer from both the Keith case and the Hamdi plurality is that such a unilateral power over U.S. citizens–exempt from judicial oversight–does not exist. As the Hamdi plurality stated, “Whatever power the United States Constitution envisions for the Executive in its exchanges with other nations or with enemy organizations in times of conflict, it most assuredly envisions a role for all three branches when individual liberties are at stake.” So said the plurality in rejecting the government’s claim, based on Article II, that courts have no real role to play in reviewing the executive’s enemy combatant determination. The Court said basically the same thing in the Keith case: “The Fourth Amendment contemplates a prior judicial judgment, not the risk that executive discretion may be reasonably exercised. This judicial role accords with our basic constitutional doctrine that individual freedoms will best be preserved through a separation of powers and division of functions among the different branches and levels of Government.” Accordingly, the separation of powers strongly suggests that the executive’s power to wiretap U.S. citizens’ communications must be subject to judicial oversight–and unilateral wiretapping of such communications without a warrant would be unconstitutional.

While the Democrats and the press scream about Bush eavesdropping on your grandmother in her nursing home, others are taking a more in depth look at what is going on. Bush has come out swinging on this one, clearly ready to defend what he believes is…

With James Risen presumably off reading the galley proofs of his forthcoming book Screwing Over America (For Fun and Profit), David Sanger joined in the next installment of Eric Lichtblau’s year-long fevered pursuit to tip al Qaeda to the nature…

Like Steve, I too was surprised about the revelation that the NYT sat on the Snoopgate story for a year. Some interesting developments. First, Orin Kerr’s got a thorough post up analyzing the various legal questions about the President’s claim that the…

There is a lot of great analysis and opinion in the blogosphere regarding Bush’s authorization of warrantless NSA surveillance. Here are some useful links: News Articles James Risen & Eric Lichtblau, Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts (N.Y….

Was the secret NSA surveillance program legal? Was it constitutional? Did it violate federal statutory law? It turns out these are hard questions, but I wanted to try my best to answer them. My answer is pretty tentative, but here it goes: Althoug…

Bush acted to protect this nation.. His calculation was that atleast 35 senators will support this limited monitoring of international communication.

This a ‘border search’ – which is allowed under the 4th.

One of the really cool things about blogs is that very smart, knowledgeable people can offer up their opinions on topics of the moment. In this case, it’s Orin Kerr and Daniel Solove offering up extended legal analyses of the…