According to USNews.com,
But in a little-noticed white paper submitted by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to Congress on January 19 justifying the legality of the NSA eavesdropping, Justice Department lawyers made a tacit case that President Bush also has the inherent authority to order [warrantless] physical searches. ... The memo cites congressional testimony of Jamie Gorelick, a former deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration, in 1994 stating that the Justice Department "believes, and the case law supports, that the president has inherent authority to conduct warrantless physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes."(Note to Gonzales: Ditch the weasel words, stop trying to pass the buck or hide behind the opinions of others, show some backbone and state what you believe the law to be.)
In any event, I'm still trying to find the "except if you're the President" clause in the Fourth Amendment. (And isn't it terrifically activist to read a "foreign policy exception" into such plain language?)
Over at Crime and Federalism, Mike has more on the Supreme Court's slavish devotion to textualism.
ReplyDeleteYou just know how the usual suspects would have reacted if Clinton had tried this.
ReplyDelete