Okay, this really does require a bit more explanation.
As John Aravosis points out here, Andrea Mitchell is pretty clearly telling us that she has at least some evidence that Christiane Amanpour got swept up in the warrantless NSA eavesdropping that’s been in the news for the last two weeks.
To me, since there’s so little we know about the methods and targets of this surveillance, the key issue is that, whatever the substantive merit of these wiretaps, doing them without a warrant seems to have violated the FISA law.
If the present law doesn’t allow something that is indeed necessary, the president has to get Congress to change the law. At a minimum, the president needs to fully inform Congress of what he is doing and the legal/constitutional basis upon which he believes he is acting.
Otherwise, Congress isn’t in a position to exercise its constitutionally mandated oversight role.
Yet the president is arguing that his powers as commander-in-chief give him the authority to set aside that law. Such an unlimited assertion of presidential authority just has no place in our constitutional system; and his continued assertion of such authority is a plenty big enough scandal right there.
But if this were to take a truly Nixonian turn and it turns out that this was being used against political enemies, anti-war groups or journalists then we’re talking a whole ‘nother ballgame.
More reporting needed.
Late Update: Now apparently NBC has edited the detail about Amanpour out of the transcript.
