A federal judge has ordered an immediate halt to the President’s NSA spying program. TPM Muckraker has some excerpts from the judge’s decision :
“The Government appears to argue here that, pursuant to the penumbra of Constitutional language in Article II, and particularly because the President is designated Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, he has been granted the inherent power to violate not only the laws of the Congress but the First and Fourth Amendments of the Constitution, itself.
We must first note that the Office of the Chief Executive has itself been created, with its powers, by the Constitution. There are no hereditary Kings in America and no power not created by the Constitution. So all “inherent power” must derive from that Constitution.”
Upon hearing this decision, President Bush, whose great-grandfather was a close adviser to President Hoover, grandfather was a Senator, and father was President, said “I’m sorry, were you trying to tell me something?”