Government surveillance practices fail legally in different ways, panelists said at a Cato Instituternevent Wednesday. The bulk collection of phone metadata is “unconstitutional,” said Laura Donohue, director of Georgetown’s Center on National Security and the Law. The Foreign Intelligence SurveillancernCourt “was specifically intended to prevent the [National Security Agency] and others ... from actuallyrnconducting these types of activities,” she said, calling the court’s role “initially very narrow.” The veryrnexistence of government surveillance affects individual rights, said Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director ofrnthe American Civil Liberties Union’s Center for Democracy. “Really the debate isn’t about the call recordsrnproblem,” he said. “Should the government be allowed to collect everything on the theory thatrnsomeday someone might do something wrong?” That framing makes it tougher to accept the practices, hernsaid. But Attorney General “Eric Holder is not Darth Vader,” said Paul Rosenzweig, visiting fellow at thernHeritage Foundation. He argued these practices have been subject to considerable judicial scrutiny. “Irnthink in the end, Laura [Donohue] should be right, but she’s not, at least in the way it is right now.” Thernconstitutional argument “just doesn’t carry forward” under existing court precedent, said Rosenzweig, formerrndeputy assistant secretary for policy in the Department of Homeland Security under President GeorgernW. Bush. — JH
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