The president overstepped his authority when he asked the NSA to eavesdrop on Americans' international phone calls without obtaining a warrant.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Has President Bush exceeded his constitutional authority or acted illegally in authorizing wiretaps without a warrant? Benjamin Franklin would not have thought so.
President Bush has asserted the right to wiretap and eavesdrop on any American without a warrant in the name of fighting terrorism. He has asserted presidential power beyond stated constitutional rights, and there is no Republican gutsy enough to call his hand.
On his own okay, Bush has authorized eavesdropping on as many as a thousand people over the past three years, with some of those intercepts being purely domestic, the New York Times reported.
There is no better illustration of that crisis than the fact that the president is openly violating our nation's laws by authorizing the NSA to engage in warrantless surveillance of U.S. citizens.
Usually you kind of give the President a pass on leaking confidential stuff.
What I believe is that a lot of the NSA's telephone metadata program is the result of misinformation spread by a traitor, Edward Snowden.
The NSA is not listening to anyone's phone calls. They're not reading any Americans' e-mails. They're collecting simply the data that your phone company already has, and which you don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy, so they can search that data quickly in the event of a terrorist plot.
For months, Obama administration officials attacked Snowden's motives and said the work of the NSA was distorted by selective leaks and misinterpretations.
I'm not against the NSA. I'm not against spying; I'm not against looking at phone records.
Ever since we've had electronic communications, and particularly during a time of war, presidents have authorized the electronic surveillance of the enemy.