Newsweek: Decoding the NSA Surveillance Debate:

[Daniel] Klaidman: . . . What's interesting is that a lot of this theater, while both fascinating and substantively important, has obscured the critical question. What was what it about the NSA domestic spying program that sparked the revolt in the first place? The New York Times, in an editorial Thursday morning, raises the possibility that President Bush authorized the NSA to "intercept domestic e-mails and phone calls without first getting a warrant." The administration has acknowledged authorizing interceptions of coimmunications between people overseas and people in the United States. That would be a huge development, if true. In my reporting, I was never able to get anyone to confirm that. What our sources said was that the program did not impose sufficient legal standards required by the constitution and statutory law. The reformed program essentially required government officials to come up with probable cause before they could start spying. With every new development, it seems a better likelihood that the facts will come out. Fascinating and important stuff.

[Michael] Isikoff: Indeed. As for what precisely was going on here, look at the wording of the statement the Justice Department released Wednesday night:

“In response to questions about press accounts of internal dissent within the Justice Department over intelligence programs, the Attorney General, in his testimony to Congress, relayed that there had not been serious disagreement about the Terrorist Surveillance Program—that is, the NSA surveillance activities publicly confirmed by the President that targeted for collection international communications into or out of the United States where there is probable cause to believe that one of the communicants is a member or agent of al Qaeda or an associated terrorist organization.

“At the same time, the Attorney General acknowledged that there have been disagreements about other intelligence activities, as one would expect. The Attorney General’s testimony on these points was and remains accurate. While the Attorney General provided this testimony in an unclassified setting, it is important to consider that the fact and nature of such disagreements have been briefed to the Intelligence Committees.”

So again, note the wording here. There may have been disagreements about "other intelligence activities." Maybe it's purely domestic interceptions or some variations thereof. But until we know the answer, the debate over what is arguably the biggest single legal issue of the Bush presidency—whether the president engaged in large scale domestic spying outside the orbit of the law—is taking place entirely in the dark.

Posted by Laura at May 18, 2007 12:54 AM