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The Elliott School of International Affairs and the non-partisan group Americans for Informed Democracy sponsored an at-times heated roundtable discussion with three prominent speakers who sparred over President Bush's domestic intelligence program. More than 100 people, including international media, attended the event.
Panelists debated Bush's controversial decision to let the National Security Agency conduct surveillance within the United States without court oversight. In December, The New York Times revealed that the NSA was monitoring calls between suspected overseas terrorists and people within America's borders.
Many politicians and legal experts have said Bush violated the Foreign Intelligence Service Act of 1978 by not getting court approval for the wiretaps; while, others have said he was within the scope of Congress' post-Sept. 11 authorization of force, neither overstepping the law nor the Constitution.
Arsalan Iftikhar, national legal director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, opened the forum by calling Bush "a terrible president," saying that his domestic surveillance program ignores the law.
"This is not just about the war on terrorism; this is about a president's unbridled power grab beyond constitutional limits," he said. "This is an issue that affects all Americans."
Iftikhar said Bush's disregard for civil liberties "really strikes at the heart of everything that makes this nation wonderful."
Clifford May, president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and former communications director of the Republican National Committee, defended Bush's use of the wiretaps, which he said is legal and essential to America's national security.
"The threat to our freedom is what we're exaggerating here," he said. "All we're doing is what were doing in every war in the past."
