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Re post #25 and #45 -- I did not have a chance to post the entire article because of the excerpt requirement for the NYT, but here is some other text from the article:

The lawsuits seek to answer one of the major questions surrounding the eavesdropping program: has it been used solely to single out the international phone calls and e-mail messages of people with known links to Al Qaeda, as President Bush and his most senior advisers have maintained, or has it been abused in ways that civil rights advocates say could hark back to the political spying abuses of the 1960's and 70's?

"There's almost a feeling of déjà vu with this program," said James Bamford, an author and journalist who is one of five individual plaintiffs in the A.C.L.U. lawsuit who say they suspect that the program may have been used to monitor their international communications.

"It's a return to the bad old days of the N.S.A.," said Mr. Bamford, who has written two widely cited books on the intelligence agency.

I watched some of Al Gore's speech last night, and while he wsa clearly playing to the audience at times, there was also a theme running through his speech which was thought-provoking, in that he, too, mentioned Lincoln and other presidents whose use of expanded power eventually contracted over time.

The point Gore made which caused me to pause was that along with GW's expanded power (legal or not), the "timeframe" for using this expanded power appears to be in perpetuity, in light of the nature of this war, unlike past presidents. This would seem to me to bring about a fundamental change in our government, unless one believes our government is spying illegally all the time anyway. And, some voters probably do believe that, and so, no big deal to them.

But, I don't know. It's not an issue that I can see directly impacting my life at this moment. And, I do think a president has greater authority during wartime. So, who knows...

And, I do think a president has greater authority during wartime.

A point I've made in a number of places is that Congress has the authority "To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces." Unless this is simply hollow rhetoric, this means the Congress controls the military. As a result, when the President assumes the role of CinC, he puts himself under Congress as the highest-ranking member of a subordinate military.

Since this is incompatible with the separation of powers, I further contend that CinC is in fact a separate position from President, with the only requirement for the job being that the person who is CinC must also be the person who is President. Because the job of CinC has less autonomy than the Presidency, and because its a different job than President, my final contention is that the assertion that functioning as CinC broadens the President's powers is, to use a technical term, hooey.

I know about the posting requirements. I missed Gore's speech. I'd take pause at what you mentioned also because it's a scare tactic which is how the left always makes its appeal, doesn't matter what's the issue. So Gore thinks because the war APPEARS to be in perpetuity we must limit the president's powers. Makes no sense. The President spelled it out very well as to the nature of the war. It would be long, fought on many fronts and those fronts were not all on the field of battle. If the Democrats (or anybody) wants to say something, I'll listen. Like Kerry-plan, I would have listened If he actually had one. He didn't. None of them do. Just throwing their lies to the media who sends them out to the echo chamber so they can get their votes in order to retain their glorious taxpayer funded lifestyle and perhaps seize power again so they can conspire more against the good people of this great nation.