Bush's choice for attorney general: Constitution does not prevent wiretapping of terrorists

Oct. 26, 2007, 6:03PM | AG pick: Constitution does not prevent wiretapping of terrorists | By LAURIE KELLMAN | Associated Press

WASHINGTON — President Bush's choice for attorney general told senators Friday the Constitution does not prevent the president from wiretapping suspected terrorists without a court order.

Michael Mukasey said the president cannot use his executive power to get around the Constitution and laws prohibiting torture. But wiretapping suspected terrorists' without warrants is not precluded, he said.

"Foreign intelligence gathering is a field in which the executive branch is regulated but not pre-empted by Congress," Mukasey wrote in response to questions by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. ...
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His answers focused on queries about executive power and did not address what Leahy and other senators have said is the chief obstacle to his confirmation: Mukasey's refusal to say if an interrogation method that simulates drowning amounts to torture outlawed under domestic and international law. ...
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"In both situations, the president, in authorizing such conduct, would be flouting both statutory and constitutional prohibitions based on a broad assertion of executive power," Leahy wrote. "I am concerned that this legal justification could lead to a continuation of the kind of warrantless surveillance in violation of statute that we have seen." ...