I don't think that word means what you say it does

The NSA is conducting warrantless surveillance of calls coming from or going to suspected terrorists abroad. We are told nothing unlawful is going on. The NSA is collecting a massive database of every phone call ever made to look for "patterns" that might alert them to terrorist activities. This too we are told is lawful. These proclamations give me no comfort because the people making them don't mean the same thing I do when we use the word lawful.

This President and his legal advisors, especially Albert Gonzales, seem to have such an expansive view of presidential power that almost anything he does as commander in chief is legal as long as he says it is. Honestly, that was Gonzales's argument to congress defending the original NSA program revealed some time back. The president alone is the commander in chief and so if he says FISA doesn't apply to the "War on Terror," then it doesn't.

This is the same kind of logic his legal team uses in his signing statements. He signs a bill into law but reserves the right to ignore portions of it if he decides they unconstitutionally infringe on his perogatives.

So when I jump up and say, "Hey, you can't authorize the NSA to ignore FISA, and therefore broke the law," he might say, "No laws were broken in the application of this necessary program." But what he really means is "FISA infringes on my duty to wage war in defense of the nation and therefore I'm not subject to it." These are very different things. The second statement is far from settled. The Supreme Court hasn't weighed in on this and I believe it would not agree. If I'm right, then the administrations claim of "lawfulness" falls apart. It is based on this implied but rarely spoken premise. It is Orwellian double-speak at its finest.

Will any Senator, Dem or Rep, get this and bear this in mind as they question Michael Hayden during confirmation hearings? Will Arlen Specter bear this in mind during his hearings on signing statements in June? Stay tuned...