Scott Horton’s national-security analyses have drawn a fair amount of attention on this blog in recent days. But when it rains, it pours. In his latest Harper’s post, he mocks John Yoo’s recent op-ed discussion of FDR’s defiance of statutory restrictions on national-security wiretapping activities:
Horton’s sarcastic reference to the 1978 FISA statute misses the obvious point: FDR defied a different statute, the Communications Act of 1934. TWS contributor Adam White — who’s debunked a few of Horton’s dispatches this week — co-authored an article on FDR’s surveillance activities a few years ago. It’s not as though this was a hard point for Horton to track down: Yoo’s op-ed specifically identified the 1937 Supreme Court Decision, interpreting the Communications Act of 1934, that FDR chose to ignore.
