Attorney General Alberto Gonzales says that spying on Americans is not a violation of the Constitution or the statutes. Where exactly did this guy go to law school? It must be a very special kind of law school that teaches you to read federal statute and completely misinterpret it for your own political means.
Here's an absolute statement: Spying on Americans is creepy, at best and illegal and unconstitutional at worst.
oh, yes if some dude is on his cell phone to some mountain top in pakistan, he might mention his social security number or some other private shit while they're planning where to put the anthrax and we don't want that overheard, do we?
creepy my hairy ass. you people are pathetic.
Oh, believe me, that's not a very special kind of law school - it's just law school.
My big problem with this whole thing is that all the administration had to do was get a warrant. That's it. What they did was completely legal under current US law - with a warrant they were too busy and important to bother getting. While the spying is incredibly creepy, I feel like the administration would probably get away with it if they just said, "You know what, you're right. We should have gotten a warrant, and we're sorry. We'll do it next time." Enough Americans are completely freaked out by the specter of terrorism that it would probably just disappear as a story after not too much longer, and the President would get brownie points for apologizing like a big boy.