jack goldsmith was a government lawyer during the bush administration. he is one of the people i was referring to who helped set limits on the warrantless surveillance program. host: did you study under him? no.t: i think he was at university of chicago at the time. he went to harvard out -- after he got out of government. he said that this violated the separation of powers and rejects the idea of limits on presidential powers. he rightly acted to rein it in. he wrote a book that describes a lot of the excesses. i agree with a lot of what he says. one thing i disagree with -- he wrote another book recently. what he argues in his more recent book is that the bush presidency and the obama administration have been constrained, that they tried to extend -- exceed the bounds of constitutional power, but they have been reined in by congress, the court, nonprofit groups, the aclu. i'm not sure i'm as optimistic as he is. i think the obama presidency has continued the bush administration's approach in many ways. unfortunately, it has not been effectively reined

jack goldsmith was a government lawyer during the bush administration.is one of the people i was referring to who helped set limits on the warrantless surveillance program. host: did you study under him? no.t: i think he was at university of chicago at the time. he went to harvard out -- after he got out of government. he said that this violated the separation of powers and rejects the idea of limits on presidential powers. he rightly acted to rein it in. he wrote a book that describes a lot of the excesses. i agree with a lot of what he says. one thing i disagree with -- he wrote another book recently. what he argues in his more recent book is that the bush presidency and the obama administration have been constrained, that they tried to extend -- exceed the bounds of constitutional power, but they have been reined in by congress, the court, nonprofit groups, the aclu. i'm not sure i'm as optimistic as he is. i think the obama presidency has continued the bush administration's approach in many ways. unfortunately, it has not been effectively reined in.