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Comment by el_fuser | Hacker News Reader

"This is why, if you are a critic of the N.S.A.’s surveillance program, it is imperative that the war on terror reach its culmination."

The problem is there's no end, nor can there be an end. It's too nebulous. We have always had terrorism, and always will. Just like the war on drugs or poverty.

And just because Lincoln did it.... That doesn't make it right.

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The "GWoT" isn't a war in the legal sense. It isn't a war under the definition of war as it is word is used in the US federal constitution. And yet, I suspect we will find that these "secret interpretations" of laws are based in some secret declaration of emergency powers that, in effect, edit our rights and selectively suspend the constitution.

Where did the U.S. Constitution define "war"? For that matter, where did the U.S. Constitution mandate how exactly Congress is (and is not) allowed to handle declarations of war, other than that Congress is to do it?

There is a context: What definition of war requires that war be declared by an act of Congress? Has it got a beginning? How does it end? Do you think that pseudo-war is legitimate in this context? Do you think the Framers meant to write empty, infinitely flexible words?

Sure there can be an end. It'll end when enough people get fed up with it to demand an end, and the President follows through. As the memory of 9/11 fades in relevance and the wars in the Middle East die down, the public's tolerance for the war will wane. I can only hope it doesn't take as long as the War on Communism.

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