Jim Downey's Rants & Raves On Just About Everything: Former Associate Deputy Attorney General Rips Into Administration's NSA Surveillance Program

Ex-Justice Lawyer Rips Case for Spying: White House's Legal Justifications Called Weak

A former senior national security lawyer at the Justice Department is highly critical of some of the Bush administration's key legal justifications for warrantless spying, saying that many of the government's arguments are weak and unlikely to be endorsed by the courts, according to documents released yesterday.

David S. Kris, a former associate deputy attorney general who now works at Time Warner Inc., concludes that a National Security Agency domestic spying program is clearly covered by a 1978 law governing clandestine surveillance, according to a legal analysis and e-mails sent to current Justice officials.

Kris, who oversaw national security issues at Justice from 2000 until he left the department in 2003, also wrote that the Bush administration's contention that Congress had authorized the NSA program by approving the use of force against al-Qaeda was a "weak justification" unlikely to be supported by the courts.

Notice that Kris is a former associate deputy attorney general, not a current member of the Bush administration. Wonder why that is the case? Perhaps because he had the integrity, audacity and temerity to question the unprecedented grab for power by the White House and the rest of the Bush gang? It would be nice to know exactly why he left the employ of the DOJ and the august company of the Bush gang.

By the way, may reading this blog may notice that I have started to use the reference, "Bush gang." I have thought about this carefully. The way George W. is behaving is exactly how some of the gang leaders I have worked with in the past... nothing matters but the gratification of his whim and will, regardless of who it hurts in the process. I have seen this type of behavior in leaders within the Latin Kings, the Blood, the Cryps, the Hell's Angels and the Devil's Disciples. The rationale is different, the playing field is different, but the behaviors and the dynamics are almost exactly the same.

The criticism represents an unusual public dissent by a former administration official over the legality of the domestic spying program, which allows the NSA to intercept international communications involving U.S. citizens and residents without warrants. The program, approved by President Bush in October 2001, was first revealed publicly in media reports in December and has been the focus of furious political battles since then.

Kris's views are contained both in a 23-page legal analysis that he provided yesterday to journalists and in a series of e-mails that he sent in December to Courtney Elwood, an associate counsel to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales. The e-mails were released yesterday by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which obtained them as part of ongoing Freedom of Information Act litigation.