Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Bush is spying you!

American Law Professors and former governmental officials (including K Sullivan, R Epstein, L tribe and R Dworkin) sign a petition on the New York review of Books against the violation of privacy by the National Security Agency (NSA).

The basic legal question is easy to grasp: the government does not respect the careful balance between protecting civil liberties and obtaining valuable intelligence.

American law, as the petition argues, makes 'any electronic surveillance not authorized by statute' criminal. As a consequence, the NSA program has to be explicitly permitted by Congress. But, as it happens, there is no evidence that Congress has done so.

Thus, Bush is spying you without legal basis!

1 comment:

Frank Partisan said...

That has become a big issue in the USA. The split on the issue is liberal and conservative against liberal and conservative.

I posted that Christopher Hitchens joined an American Civil Liberties Union suit on this issue.

Regards.