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Horton Gets It Wrong--Again

4:03 PM, Jul 17, 2009 • By JONATHAN V. LAST
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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:

Consider, for instance, [Yoo's] argument that Franklin Delano Roosevelt proceeded to order national security surveillance without seeking warrants. Fascinating. Might the fact that the requirement of warrants was first imposed by statute in 1978 have something to do with that?

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.

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