Bush allowed NSA to spy within USA without warrants

[Hurin_Rules]

As far as the end of war: that occurs when there is victory. Whether that takes 5 years like WWII, 8 years like the Revolutionary War, or 27 years like the Peloponnesian War is not relevant.

Again, you're flatly denying the obvious and refusing to consider the wider issues here. The 'War on Terror' is nothing like WWII. When will there be no terrorism? No one can forsee a point in the future when it will end. Essentially, you're allowing for the permanent declaration of war and the expansion of war powers for the president. Somehow, this is all just mundane and routine to you?

You can parse and splice and utilize your superior training in law to browbeat all the people you want, but even the simlest layman can see several facts. Congressional investigations of this issue will soon begin. Senators and lawyers, many of them Republican, have serious concerns that the law was breached, and most feel that the grey areas in the law and in respect to presidential powers need to be cleared up. This includes a wide range of people, from Republican senator Specter to the lawyers who resigned in protest to the non-partisan congressional committee that called into question the president's legal defense of the program. To not even be concerned about this, and pretend, before all the facts have come out, that it is an 'open and shut' case, is a sad statement on the state of respect for civil liberties in America.

So explain all you want. To tell you the truth, although I value your opinions, I don't assume that you are trying to be objective here, even though you keep claiming it is an 'open and shut' case. You seem to lock yourself into prosecutor mode when discussing these issues, defending the administration without providing the other side of the argument, and always carefully avoiding facts and arguments that would undermine your own. While I'm sure that serves you well in court, it does not help other members to develop balanced opinions, or any of us to discover the truth.