For what it’s worth, here’s what I find most interesting about Byron’s must-read article on the Clinton administration’s claims about the president’s authority to do national security searches and wiretaps.
Then-Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick testified that, in the realm of national security (as opposed to domestic policing), “[i]nformation gathering for policy making and prevention, rather than prosecution, are its primary focus.”
I have no quarrel with that. I am just wondering what the media would do if President Bush even hinted at what the Clinton administration unabashedly claimed: that the executive branch should be able to collect intelligence for no better reason than policy-making.