And I might guess he would agree about Feingold. While Clark doesn't give any of the senators a pass, he does mention the vote on the Patriot Act as demonstrating why those who were briefed before didn't speak up when they should have. Not too tough to extrapolate that he wants to see them all doing more now--he has been pretty clear all along that Congress has fallen way short in its duties under the principle of the separation of powers. (Btw, the ellipses in the quote below appear where Clark typed 'em--I haven't snipped anything out of the middle of his words, altho I did trim some before and after that pertained to other questions he was asked.)
I do not subscribe to the doctrine of the President's having unlimited authority as Commander-in-Chief. He must still obey the law. What I don't understand in this case is why he just couldn't use the existing law. It would seem to cover such cases perfectly, albeit with a secret court. But the NSA could have even gained retroactive authority. So why not use the existing law? This is the major open question, which will determine where the story really goes....
The Democratic leadership could have objected and demanded that the Administration use existing law, threatened to blow the whistle, and committed an act of civil disobedience by leaking the information... This would have likely been hugely unpopular at the time, given the mood in 2001 when this began, and few Democratic lawmakers would have been up to it. Just see the vote on the Patriot Act.
Of course, I would be interested in knowing exactly who they were listening to, and when... this is important to understand the significance of the intrusion upon privacy, and to understand why existing law wouldn't suffice.
This would, prima facie, seem to be a violation of the law, and Presidents shouldn't break the law.
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