A second former official said the program contributed to the apprehension of Lyman Faris, an Ohio truck driver who pleaded guilty in 2003 to charges of collaborating with al-Qaida on a plot to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge.
The DOJ has named a U.S. Citizen who was surveilled by the extra-FISA NSA program. This provides a platform for questions about Article II to actually be litigated in the court system, where they ought to be answered, rather then through impeachment of the President. This is a good thing from a technical perspective about the law. However, the other question, which I haven't addressed, is whether or not this ought to be legally authorized. Domestic terrorism raises challenging questions. How do you deal with a situation where U.S. Citizens are involved in foreign terror plots in such a way that ensures that you succeed but prevents the system from running off of the rails and focusing on all manner of domestic political groups. One idea that I have is that instead of putting the court system between the wiretap and the wiretapper, put them between the wiretapper and the rest of the law enforcement system, ensuring that only information which is relevant to terrorism is actually passed across, Congress demands answers about surveillance |