“According to Bruce Fein, a constitutional lawyer who served as associate deputy attorney general under [President] Ronald Reagan, the new domestic spying program that eventually emerged from this [September 25, 2001] authorization [by Deputy Chief of the Office of Legal Counsel John Yoo] flouted the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA) by directing the National Security Agency to subject American citizens to electronic surveillance ‘on [the president’s] say-so alone.’ Writing in the Washington Monthly [in October 2006], Fein characterized the program of being based on ‘an imperial theory of inherent constitutional power that would empower [the president] to open mail, break in and enter homes, or torture detainees, even in violation of federal criminal statutes.’ ”
– Craig Unger, The Fall of the House of Bush, Pages 221-222