The Scholarly Commons

 

Title

The National Security Agency's Domestic Spying Program: Framing the Debate

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2006

Abstract

In the pages that follow, the Indiana Law Journal reprints four documents that, taken together, set forth the basic arguments concerning the lawfulness of the secret NSA surveillance program. The debate outlined by the four documents raises important issues about statutory interpretation in the face of claims of constitutional conflict, executive power during times of war, fundamental privacy rights of Americans, and ultimately, the rule of law in the war on terror. . . The question that these documents raise is not whether suspected al Qaeda members' phone calls should be monitored, but whether wiretapping of Americans in pursuit of that objective should be done pursuant to law, or pursuant to secret orders issued by the President in contravention of law. Our view is that if the President finds federal law inadequate in some measure, the proper course is to ask Congress to change it. What the President cannot do in our democracy is order that the law be violated in secret.

Publication Citation

81 Ind. L.J. 1355-1425 (2006)