Bob Barr on NSA spying

Bob Barr is no friend of the Bush administration when it comes to the Patriot Act and was outraged by the revelation the Bush had authorized illegal spying on Americans by the NSA. This from CNN (via Atrios)

BLITZER: Congressman Barr, what's wrong with what the president has decided to do?

BOB BARR, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: What's wrong with it is several-fold. One, it's bad policy for our government to be spying on American citizens through the National Security Agency. Secondly, it's bad to be spying on Americans without court oversight. And thirdly, it's bad to be spying on Americans apparently in violation of federal laws against doing it without court order.

So it's bad all around, and we need to get to the bottom of this.

And then this from Kool-Aid addicted REP. Dana Rohrabacher, (R) CA

BLITZER: Do you agree, Congressman Rohrabacher -- I suspect you don't.

REP. DANA ROHRABACHER, (R) CALIFORNIA: No. What's really bad is the fact that we have an evil opponent who wants to blow us up and that six months after 3,000 of our American citizens were slaughtered right in front of our eyes, that we were confronted with this challenge. I'm really sorry that we have this kind of evil enemy that wants to slaughter us, but I'm very happy that we have a president that, six months after they slaughtered 3,000 of our citizens, he decided to follow up on a lead that was given to our people by breaking up an al Qaeda cell in Pakistan, and followed through on that to make sure that there wasn't another imminent attack, and thus probably saving many thousands of American lives. We can be proud of President Bush for protecting us.

BLITZER: Congressman Barr, what do you say?

BARR: Well, the fact of the matter is that the Constitution is the Constitution, and I took an oath to abide by it. My good friend, my former colleague, Dana Rohrabacher, did and the president did. And I don't really care very much whether or not it can be justified based on some hypothetical. The fact of the matter is that, if you have any government official who deliberately orders that federal law be violated despite the best of motives, that certainly ought to be of concern to us.

Barr concludes with this:

BARR: Here again, this is absolutely a bizarre conversation where you have a member of Congress saying that it's okay for the president of the United States to ignore U.S. law, to ignore the Constitution, simply because we are in an undeclared war.

The fact of the matter is the law prohibits -- specifically prohibits -- what apparently was done in this case, and for a member of Congress to say, oh, that doesn't matter, I'm proud that the president violated the law is absolutely astounding, Wolf.

Barr carries a lot of weight with the gun toting NRA types in the Republican Party. This flap could result in Bush losing another piece of the base.