Will Bush Trigger a Constitutional Crisis?

Today's Inquirer has an article by Pete Yost concerning the Supreme Court decision on Hamdan and how it negates the President's entire rationale for the NSA spying. We've been saying all along that this program is illegal and has no basis in law. Yost and other analysts have pointed to language in the decision which states that the Authorization for Use of Military Force does NOT give Bush carte blanche to violate the law and international treaties at his whim.

That congressional Authorization for Use of Military Force resolution, enacted a week after the 2001 attacks, cannot be seen as authorizing military commissions, the court ruled in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld.

In January, the Justice Department invoked the resolution 92 times in a 42-page paper aimed at quelling the outcry over the news that the White House had conducted warrantless surveillance. That paper, a centerpiece in the administration's counterattack against its critics, was titled "Legal Authorities Supporting the Activities of the National Security Agency Described By the President."

The AUMF has been cited by the White House to authorize all its illegal activities. I'd be willing to bet there are programs yet unannounced that are also illegal. Attorney General Gonzales alluded to "other programs" in his unsworn Congressional testimony earlier this year.

We are supposed to be an open society. Revealing secret programs which are illegal isn't aiding terrorists it's being patriotic. If anyone thinks Osama is stupid enough to use cell phones and bank wire transfers four years after the attacks you're greatly underestimating what it took to pull off those acts. It will be interesting to see how Bush reconciles his activities with this decision and which direction he chooses to go now. Will he agree to abide by the rule of law or will he continue to flaunt it. This could be the beginning of a constitutional crisis.