Speechifying! Gore nails it.

Now if you want some passion with your conviction check out Al Gore's recent speech to the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy and the Liberty Coalition, two organizations that expressed concern with the legality of the surveillance program..

RawStory has a transcript here and reports:

In an address delivered in Washington to multiple standing ovations, Vice President Al Gore repeatedly attacked the Bush Administration for the expansion of executive power -- the ability of the government to wiretap its own citizens without legal authority and kidnap Americans abroad. His speech -- which compares the wiretapping of Martin Luther King to the broad surveillance now imposed on Americans by President Bush -- called on Congress to resume its oversight responsibilities, and enjoined Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to appoint a special prosecutor. Gore was to be introduced by former Rep. Bob Barr, a Georgia Republican who has advocated for the constitutional right to privacy.

Digby explains at great length and with his usual eloquence here. Here's a sample:

Al Gore has become the conscience of the Democratic Party.

[...]

The Enlightenment was in many ways a study of human nature and those who were educated in its ideas, like the founders of this country, used those observations to understand how power works. Knowing that some leaders will seek ever expanding power is exactly why the constitution was designed with its careful system of checks and balances and why the Bill of Rights was written. It's a flaw in our species which, if recognized, can be held at bay by systemic roadblocks. That's what's being fiddled with here and it's dangerous.

As The Brutal Truth put it:

President-Elect Al Gore is currently live on C-SPAN skewering the hell out of President-Select George W. Bush.

Peter Daou asks and answers:

"If a tree falls in a forest... A former Vice-President of the United States delivers a major speech accusing George W. Bush of breaking the law. What do all three cable news nets cover under the "Breaking News" banner? An overturned tanker truck on a New York highway."

[Update]

This is good stuff!

e.g.

...The President and I agree on one thing. The threat from terrorism is all too real. There is simply no question that we continue to face new challenges in the wake of the attack on September 11th and that we must be ever-vigilant in protecting our citizens from harm.

Where we disagree is that we have to break the law or sacrifice our system of government to protect Americans from terrorism. In fact, doing so makes us weaker and more vulnerable.

Once violated, the rule of law is in danger. Unless stopped, lawlessness grows. The greater the power of the executive grows, the more difficult it becomes for the other branches to perform their constitutional roles. As the executive acts outside its constitutionally prescribed role and is able to control access to information that would expose its actions, it becomes increasingly difficult for the other branches to police it. Once that ability is lost, democracy itself is threatened and we become a government of men and not laws...

[...]

The President Of The United States Has Been Breaking The Law Repeatedly And Insistently.

Update2:

Kevin Drum points out:

The most serious damage has been done to the legislative branch. The sharp decline of congressional power and autonomy in recent years has been almost as shocking as the efforts by the Executive Branch to attain a massive expansion of its power.

....There have now been two or three generations of congressmen who don't really know what an oversight hearing is. In the 70's and 80's, the oversight hearings in which my colleagues and I participated held the feet of the Executive Branch to the fire — no matter which party was in power. Yet oversight is almost unknown in the Congress today.

....Look for example at the Congressional role in "overseeing" this massive four year eavesdropping campaign that on its face seemed so clearly to violate the Bill of Rights. The President says he informed Congress, but what he really means is that he talked with the chairman and ranking member of the House and Senate intelligence committees and the top leaders of the House and Senate. This small group, in turn, claimed that they were not given the full facts, though at least one of the intelligence committee leaders handwrote a letter of concern to VP Cheney and placed a copy in his own safe.

Though I sympathize with the awkward position in which these men and women were placed, I cannot disagree with the Liberty Coalition when it says that Democrats as well as Republicans in the Congress must share the blame for not taking action to protest and seek to prevent what they consider a grossly unconstitutional program.