Xeni Jardin from boingboing.net quotes my friend Perry E. Metzger:

...Ours is a government of laws, not of men. That means if the President disagrees with a law or feels that it is insufficient, he still must obey it. Ignoring the law is illegal, even for the President. The President may ask Congress to change the law, but meanwhile he must follow it.

Our President has chosen to declare himself above the law, a dangerous precedent that could do great harm to our country. However, without substantial effort on the part of you, and I mean you, every person reading this, nothing much is going to happen. The rule of law will continue to decay in our country. Future Presidents will claim even greater extralegal authority, and our nation will fall into despotism. I mean that sincerely. For the sake of yourself, your children and your children's children, you cannot allow this to stand.

Links: [New York Times article] [Perry's editorial]

Reader Robert Uhl writes:

Unfortunately for your position, the Bush-authorised wiretaps were quite likely legal; the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act explicitly allows the President or Attorney General to authorise a wiretap without a court order for up to one year. There are conditions, and the whole thing is explained at http://www.nationalreview.com/robbins/robbins200512190859.asp.

ITConversations has a recording of an interesting panel discussion at Accelerating Change 2005 on The Prospects for AI with Neil Jacobstein, Patrick Lincoln, Peter Norvig and Bruno Olshausen.