Balkinization
an unanticipated consequence of
Jack M. Balkin
E-mail:
Jack Balkin: jackbalkin at yahoo.com
Bruce Ackerman bruce.ackerman at yale.edu
Ian Ayres ian.ayres at yale.edu
Mary Dudziak mary.l.dudziak at emory.edu
Joey Fishkin joey.fishkin at gmail.com
Heather Gerken heather.gerken at yale.edu
Abbe Gluck abbe.gluck at yale.edu
Mark Graber mgraber at law.umaryland.edu
Stephen Griffin sgriffin at tulane.edu
Bernard Harcourt harcourt at uchicago.edu
Scott Horton shorto at law.columbia.edu
Andrew Koppelman akoppelman at law.northwestern.edu
Marty Lederman msl46 at law.georgetown.edu
Sanford Levinson slevinson at law.utexas.edu
David Luban david.luban at gmail.com
Gerard Magliocca gmaglioc at iupui.edu
Jason Mazzone mazzonej at illinois.edu
Linda McClain lmcclain at bu.edu
John Mikhail mikhail at law.georgetown.edu
Frank Pasquale pasquale.frank at gmail.com
Nate Persily npersily at gmail.com
Michael Stokes Paulsen michaelstokespaulsen at gmail.com
Deborah Pearlstein dpearlst at princeton.edu
Rick Pildes rick.pildes at nyu.edu
Alice Ristroph alice.ristroph at shu.edu
Neil Siegel siegel at law.duke.edu
Brian Tamanaha btamanaha at wulaw.wustl.edu
Mark Tushnet mtushnet at law.harvard.edu
Adam Winkler winkler at ucla.edu
The NSA, FISA and Hamdan: Response to DOJ from Scholars and Former Officials
Marty Lederman
I'm honored to be part of a diverse group of constitutional scholars and former government officials who have joined together to write a series of letters to congressional officials in which we argue that the recently disclosed NSA domestic eavesdropping program is unlawful. Our first two letters, sent earlier this year, were responsive to two memoranda issued by the Department of Justice. Those four documents, along with an introduction that David Cole and I wrote, are collected in a recent issue of the Indiana Law Journal, see 81 Ind. L.J. 1355 (2006)¸ which the American Constitution Society has helpfully republished online. (See also this post.) As I noted a few days ago, last Friday DOJ wrote a letter to Senator Schumer in which it asserts that the Court's decision in Hamdan "does not affect our analysis of the Terrorist Surveillance Program."
In a letter we sent to the Hill this morning, we respond to that DOJ letter, and argue that "not only does Hamdan 'affect' the analysis, it significantly weakens the Administration's legal footing. The Court in Hamdan addressed arguments regarding the military commissions that are very similar (in some respects identical) to the DOJ’s arguments regarding NSA spying, and the Court’s reasoning strongly supports the conclusion that the President's NSA surveillance program is illegal."
(NOTE: One of our co-signatories on the earlier letters, Professor Walter Dellinger, did not sign or participate in the drafting of this most recent letter for reasons unrelated to the substance of the letter.) Posted
12:38 PM
by Marty Lederman [link]
Comments:
In letters like this it usually helps to have a brief "executive" summary. Senators are busy people, the chance that anyone there will read 10 pages of sophisticated legal argumentation is pretty much zero. Some of them don't even read the stuff they get to vote on.