McCain, spying and executive power: A complete reversal in 6 months

Glenn Greenwald
Salon.com

(updated below)

Last December, as his campaign was floundering, John McCain responded to a questionnaire on executive power, spying and torture that was distributed to all candidates by The Boston Globe's Charlie Savage. McCain explicitly refused to answer whether he thought there was "any executive power the Bush administration has claimed or exercised that . . . is unconstitutional." But on one critical issue -- whether he thinks the President possesses "inherent powers" under Article II "to conduct surveillance for national security purposes without judicial warrants, regardless of federal statutes" -- McCain gave an answer that was basically the equivalent of the ACLU/Russ-Feingold/Chris-Dodd view, and completely at odds with the Bush/Cheney/Yoo view of executive power. McCain answered:

There are some areas where the statutes don't apply, such as in the surveillance of overseas communications. Where they do apply, however, I think that presidents have the obligation to obey and enforce laws that are passed by Congress and signed into law by the president, no matter what the situation is.

Savage followed that up with a related question and McCain was just as clear:

Globe: Okay, so is that a no, in other words, federal statute trumps inherent power in that case, warrantless surveillance?

McCain: I don't think the president has the right to disobey any law.

(Continued here.)