Here are some plain, simple facts:
1.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was a tool created for law enforcement that works perfectly for discovering terrorist activities.
2. FISA allows for emergency wiretaps and other surveillance to be commenced immediately, provided that the FISA court is notified within 72 hours. This easily and readily allows for the speed that the President and Secretary of State say they need to keep tabs on terrorist activity.
3. The FISA court has received over 19,000 petitions to set up wiretaps and has declined to provide a warrant only 5 times since 1978.
4. FISA makes it expressly illegal to spy on American citizens without a warrant from the court.
Despite the fact that the tools he needed were provided by FISA, the president opted to operate in a manner inconsistant with federal law and spied on American citizens without any clearance from the courts. He cites that he has a right to do so under Article 2 of the Constitution, and I just don't see where he gets that he has the right to spy on American citizens without oversight from this:
Article 2 of the US Constitution
He also cites that he got clearance from the justice department. The problem with this is that the justice department doesn't have the legal jurisdiction to authorize such a program, nor is the administrative branch of government allowed to change or ignore the law on their own without the advice and consent of the Congress. In fact, Article 2 specifically states: "he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed".
The few members of Congress that were briefed about this program were not allowed to talk about it with anyone due to its classified nature, so how exactly does that qualify as oversight? Yet, the president claims that this was all the oversight that was needed.
Even if his intentions were good and he
really did need to move forward with this program, he should have gone through the appropriate channels and requested that FISA be changed by Congress to suit his needs, it was not a legal option for him to simply decide to simply circumvent it.