Surveillance and Presidential Powers

Hearings will be held today before the Senate Judiciary Committee on President Bush's domestic surveillance program. The logistical nuts and bolts — as far as they are known — are all about AT&T, MCI, Sprint and maybe others tapping government spies into international calls said to be monitored for terrorist connections. And the government is doing that in secret, with no warrant.

The constitutional issues are as big as they get: war powers; civil liberties; when, if ever, the president can — as critics contend — ignore the law; and when — and if — the Congress will call him to account.

Tune in to hear about the big issues boiling around the surveillance going on right now.

Guests:

John Diamond, reporter, USA Today;
Julian Zelizer, professor of history at Boston University. He is author of "On Capitol Hill: The Struggle to Reform Congress and its Consequences, 1948-2000" and editor of "New Directions in American Political History.";
Michael Dorf, law professor, Columbia University. He clerked for Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy. His forthcoming book is "No Litmus Test: Law and Politics in the 21st Century.";
Andrew McCarthy, senior fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies. From 1993 through 1996, he led the prosecution of Islamic militants in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. After September 11, he supervised the U.S. Attorney's Anti-Terrorism Command Post in New York City.