Policy Forum 

# Cato Scholars Square Off Resolved: The Bush NSA Surveillance Program Is Illegal 

##### Watch the Event 

Download:

[ 

Audio 

](https://cdn.cato.org/archive-2006/cda-05-05-06.mp3) 

Join the conversation on X using [\#CatoEvents](https://x.com/hashtag/CatoEvents). Follow [@CatoInstitute](https://x.com/catoinstitute) on X to get future event updates, live streams, and videos from the Cato Institute.

Date and Time 

May 5, 2006 12 - 2 PM EDT 

Location 

Auditorium/Wintergarden 

Share This Event 

##### Featuring 

The Cato Institute’s Center for Constitutional Studies invites you to a debate between **Robert A. Levy,** Senior Fellow in Constitutional Studies, and **Roger Pilon,** Director, Center for Constitutional Studies. 

Since it was revealed recently by the *New York Times*, the administration’s previously secret NSA surveillance program has brought to the fore a number of novel and complex legal questions. Does the executive branch have inherent authority to conduct the program? What is Congress’s authority to set limits on the executive branch? What role should the courts play? Those and other questions have led to different conclusions even within the Cato Institute. Please join us for a debate between two Cato scholars on this most timely issue.

[![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) 
This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).