Al Gore's speech yesterday:

Video, C-Span (RealPlayer)
Video excerpts (WMA)
Audio: 30-mb high-quality mp3, Peacecast, Maine; 9.7 mb podcast (.mov) and mp4 at Irregular Times.
Transcript, Washington Post

Sponsors: Liberty Coalition, American Constitution Society

WaPo: Gore Says Bush Broke the Law With Spying

The American system of checks and balances is designed to ensure that no one branch has imperial power. The use of fear and the declaration of a permanent state of war to suspend these safeguards by the Bush administration should alarm everyone who thinks the American experiment is worth continuing.

Gore called for the appointment of a special counsel:

It is therefore vital in our current circumstances that immediate steps be taken to safeguard our Constitution against the present danger posed by the intrusive overreaching on the part of the executive branch and the president's apparent belief that he need not live under the rule of law.

I endorse the words of (Republican) Bob Barr when he said, and I quote, "The president has dared the American people to do something about it. For the sake of the Constitution, I hope they will."

A special counsel should be immediately appointed by the attorney general to remedy these obvious conflicts of interest that prevents them from investigating what many believe are serious violations of law by the president.

Today, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales rejected that call, saying,

"We need to know who the enemy is. We need to know what the enemy is thinking. We need to know where the enemy is thinking about striking us again."

Replace "the enemy" with "our political enemies" or simply with "everybody" to see the problem here.

Gore is still not a mesmerizing speaker, but it's more than refreshing to hear an intelligent, thoughtful, passionate speech from a political leader again. There's been far too much of this mush:

A spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, Tracey Schmitt, attacked Gore's comments shortly after his address.

"Al Gore's incessant need to insert himself in the headline of the day is almost as glaring as his lack of understanding of the threats facing America," Schmitt said. "While the president works to protect Americans from terrorists, Democrats deliver no solutions of their own, only diatribes laden with inaccuracies and anger. "

Catching up: War, Trials, Leakers, Investigations, Packed Courts, and a Constitutional Crisis by Tom Engelhardt.

NYT: Two Groups Planning to Sue Over Federal Eavesdropping:

Two leading civil rights groups plan to file lawsuits Tuesday against the Bush administration over its domestic spying program to determine whether the operation was used to monitor 10 defense lawyers, journalists, scholars, political activists and other Americans with ties to the Middle East.

The two lawsuits, which are being filed separately by the American Civil Liberties Union in Federal District Court in Detroit and the Center for Constitutional Rights in Federal District Court in Manhattan, are the first major court challenges to the eavesdropping program.

Both groups are seeking to have the courts order an immediate end to the program, which the groups say is illegal and unconstitutional. The Bush administration has strongly defended the legality and necessity of the surveillance program, and officials said the Justice Department would probably oppose the lawsuits on national security grounds.