In his latest posting, my colleague Roger Pilon restates several of his arguments in defense of the NSA’s warrantless domestic surveillance.  Each of Roger’s points has been addressed in detail in our recent debate and in my Senate testimony.  For those who prefer a nutshell version of my response, here it is:

Roger asks, “How can Congress, by mere statute, restrict an inherent power of a co-equal branch of government …?”  I do not dispute that the president has inherent powers, especially during wartime.  The question is not the existence, but rather the scope, of those powers.  And because Congress too has wartime powers, an express restriction by Congress, like the FISA statute, is persuasive when deciding whether the president has overreached. 

Indeed, the Constitution specifically authorizes Congress to shape the  president’s inherent powers.  Article I, section 8 empowers Congress to “make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution … all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.” 

If, as Roger insists, warrantless domestic surveillance is incidental to the president’s inherent powers, so too are sneak-and-peek searches, roving wiretaps, library records searches, and national security letters – all of which were vigorously debated in deciding whether to reauthorize the Patriot Act.  Could the president have proceeded with those activities even if they were not authorized by Congress?  If so, what was the purpose of the debate?  Why do we even need a Patriot Act? 

President Bush has also asserted “inherent powers” to justify military tribunals without congressional authorization, secret CIA prisons, indefinite detention of U.S. citizens, enemy combatant declarations without hearings as required by the Geneva Conventions, and interrogation techniques that may have violated our treaty commitments banning torture.  Are those activities outside the president’s wartime authority?  If not, what are the bounds, if any, that constrain his conduct?

The animating sentiment at the time of the founding was fear of executive power – return of the king.  Against that backdrop, it’s remarkable that the president, with Roger’s apparent approval, now claims to wield unilateral powers with no safeguards – in effect, an irrebuttable presumption of authority, unfettered by Congress or the courts, to do just about anything that he pleases in battling terrorists.