Re: President had legal authority to OK taps
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"if FISA is in fact an unconstitutional limitation of the president's inherent powers, then he is free to comply or not as he pleases."
I'm not an attorney either, but I can't imagine that this is correct. The president can simply decide a law he doesn't want to follow interferes with what he sees as his "inherent" powers and then violates that law?
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The Supreme Court doesn't listen to "what if" cases. If Bush feels the law is unconstitutional, he can either follow it anyways, or decide to ignore it. There's no third procedural option. It's just like every other case where someone (black schoolchildren in Topeka, Scopes, etc.) decided not to follow a law, then challenged its validity when proceedings were brought against them. I'm not sure how court proceedings would arise to test this law, but there's no other way to get a definitive ruling on its consitutionality.
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