I'd write a note to the public editor...
but my time would be more productively spent sorting grains of sand. According to John Hinderaker over at Powerline.com, The New York Times' account of a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing earlier this week "badly misled its readers."
After reading the excerpts, I'd have to agree with Hinderaker. The FISA court judges make it pretty clear that the president has constitutional authority apart and superior to that granted by Congress through the FISA law. To quote Judge Stafford:
Everyone is bound by the law, but I do not believe, with all due respect, that even an act of Congress can limit the President's power under the Necessary and Proper Clause under the Constitution.
And you've got Democrats clamoring for a censure resolution based upon this?
Hinderaker notes that the New York Times reporter -- and the paper as a whole -- have a heck of a lot of credibility invested in the idea that the NSA surveillance program is illegal. It sure looks like this article was written with that idea front-and-center in their minds. Someone should ask Byron Calame, the Times public editor, about this -- unless they've got anything better to do with their time.
*UPDATE* More quotes on analysis this morning from Powerline here.
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"...I do not believe ... that even an act of Congress can limit the President's power under the Necessary and Proper Clause under the Constitution."
Am I missing something here or is this poorly worded. The President has no power under the Necessary and Proper clause. Article ! Section 8 applies to Congress not the President.
If you read the excerpts, I think that he's getting this from another one of the judges who doesn't like to say that the president has "inherent" authority, but rather prefers to say that like Congress has "necessary and proper" powers to do what the Constitution requires of them, the President (although it is not phrased this way in the Constitution) also has necessary and proper powers to do what is required of him under the Constitution. So, yes, it's poorly phrased (it was a Senate hearing, not a law review article), but the tone of all of the judges comments are pretty uniformly unsympathetic to the Times account.