BushCo spying argument said to be weak

It is no surprise that the Congressional Research Service's report "rebuts the central assertions" that BushCo made to order domestic warrantless wiretaps on Americans. The WaPO reported over this past weekend:

The report also concluded that Bush's assertion that Congress authorized such eavesdropping to detect and fight terrorists does not appear to be supported by the special resolution that Congress approved after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, which focused on authorizing the president to use military force.

"It appears unlikely that a court would hold that Congress has expressly or impliedly authorized the NSA electronic surveillance operations here," the authors of the CRS report wrote. The administration's legal justification "does not seem to be . . . well-grounded," they said.

This is the appropriate conclusion as seen through the the law. The Administration would have you think otherwise...

Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said the president and the administration believe the program is on firm legal footing. "The national security activities described by the president were conducted in accord with the law and provide a critical tool in the war on terror that saves lives and protects civil liberties at the same time," he said. A spokesman for the National Security Agency was not available for a comment yesterday.

Other administration officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the CRS reached some erroneous legal conclusions, erring on the side of a narrow interpretation of what constitutes military force and when the president can exercise his war powers.

Eh?????? These folks live in their own reality. BushCo broke the same law that lead to the impeachment of Nixon. Has anything changed over the last three decades? Maybe that is a naive question, but what is at stake here is legislative power (of the People) versus too much executive power. The President and his Administration are not above the law...