www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/09/24/MNQB19R...
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Sparrows since 48 days 15 hours 54 minutes, published about 47 days 21 hours 25 minutes
After years of wrangling over legal procedures, the lawyer for a defunct Islamic charity laid out his case Wednesday that former President George W. Bush's secret wiretapping program was illegal - an argument that an Obama administration attorney refused to discuss. "May the president of the United States break the law in the name of national security? ... We're asking this court to say, 'no,' " Jon Eisenberg, lawyer for the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, told a federal judge in San Francisco. Neither the president's constitutional powers as commander in chief nor Congress' authorization to use military force against terrorists after Sept. 11, 2001, entitled Bush to override a 1978 law requiring court approval for electronic surveillance of suspected terrorists, Eisenberg argued. He cited presidential candidate Barack Obama's declaration in 2007 that "warrantless surveillance of American citizens in defiance of (the 1978 law) is unlawful and unconstitutional."
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