U.S. News' Zuckerman: Charges that warrantless domestic spying is illegal "miss the point"

Summary: In his U.S. News & World Report column, Mortimer B. Zuckerman wrote that arguments that the Bush administration's warrantless domestic spying program is illegal "miss the point."

In his February 27 column, U.S. News & World Report editor-in-chief Mortimer B. Zuckerman suggested that President Bush's apparent violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is irrelevant to the debate over his warrantless domestic surveillance program, writing that Democratic and Republican "charge[s]" that the program is illegal "miss the point." Instead, Zuckerman wrote: "What is relevant is how to develop a system that empowers government to monitor potential threats in the most agile, timely way possible while reassuring the public that it is not abusing its powers."

From Zuckerman's column in the February 27 issue of U.S. News & World Report:

Critics, in both the Democratic and Republican parties, charge that such NSA operations are illegal without warrants. Such arguments miss the point. What is relevant is how to develop a system that empowers government to monitor potential threats in the most agile, timely way possible while reassuring the public that it is not abusing its powers.

—J.S.