Stark authority was pitted against the subjects' [participants'] strongest moral imperatives ... and ... authority won more often than not. The extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority constitutes the chief finding of the study and the fact most urgently demanding explanation.

-Stanley Milgram, "The Perils of Obedience", 1974

empahsis added

link at signature

I do not and the law does not in any way, shape or form, care whether someone at the phone companies was told by someone in authority - President, Attorney General, White House Counsel, Office of the Vice-President, ANYONE - that warrantless wiretapping was legal, or necessary, or good.

Any compromise on this subject that limits the scope of the judicial review to whether or not someone was told that the warrantless surveillance was legal is an absolute monstrosity. Just as "We do what we're told" is not, not not, not, not a reasonable defense for committing illegal actions, so "They were just doing what they were told," is no basis to determine legal culpability.

In the second paragraph (right after the NYT quote): "...which Congress enacted last August to legalize warrantless eavesdropping on Americas ..."

I think you meant "Americans."

If Bush pardons people for actions committed in the name of the administration during his presidency, does that mean that their 5th amendment rights no longer apply because they do not face legal jeapordy if they testify regarding any illegal actions they committed?

In other words, if pardoned, can Addington, Rove, Cheney, Yoo, Bremer, Ashcroft, Libby, Haynes - can they then be compelled to testify against themselves because they can no longer invoke the protection of the 5th amendment against self-recrmination?

Just wondering.

This is the same administration who submitted William Payne to the Senate as a Nominee for the federal judiciary.

{Hat tip to Hilzoy at Obsidian Wings - link at signature} William Haynes once submitted a brief to a federal court arguing that birdwatchers benefited from the Navy destroying bird habitats because the birds they were trying to look at would become more rare, and it was considered more of an event to .... awww - just take it away, judge:

Finally, the Court must note that defendants have adopted, along with the rest of WLF’s brief, the argument that plaintiffs have suffered insufficient injury because the more birds that the defendants kill, the more enjoyment Mr. Frew will get from seeing the ones that remain: “bird watchers get more enjoyment spotting a rare bird than they do spotting a common one.” See Defs’ Supp. Reply, Ex. A (WLF Amicus Brief) at 16-17. Suffice it to say, there is absolutely no support in the law for the view that environmentalists should get enjoyment out of the destruction of natural resources because that destruction makes the remaining resources more scarce and therefore valuable. The Court hopes that the28 federal government will refrain from making or adopting such frivolous arguments in the future.

I hope there is some recourse for suing these assholes for malpractice.

But it seems to settle the question of whether the Bush Administraton values coherence or competence over ideology, or indeed at all, in its legal advice.

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on a side note - this opinion is only available on the wayback machine at archive.org. Is there some type of online repository for federal judicial rulings? Please help. Thanks.

Molly I. has done her standard "more entertaining than the original" takedown of this MoDo piece as well.

http://whiskeyfire.typepad.com/whiskey_fire/2008/08/distorted-mirro.html

(link at sig)

You have the NYT editorial that you link to as being from 8/7/2007 - not 2008.

You can delete this comment. Otherwise it will self-destruct.

holy christ on a popsicle stick. Chandra Levy?

The juxtaposition of those two elements is among the most damning things I have ever seen you present, Glenn.

Thanks.

Hope you had a wonderful break.