By Albert Gore Jr.

(Editor's note: On Jan. 16, former Vice President Al Gore delivered a Martin Luther King Jr. Day speech at DAR Constitution Hall sponsored by a coalition of liberal and conservative groups, including MoveOn.org and the Free Congress Foundation, concerned with issues of privacy and civil liberties. Gore called for a special counsel to investigate the warrentless domestic spying program on individuals and groups, including gay groups, authorized by President George W. Bush. Attorney Gen. Alberto Gonzales has said that Bush has the legal authority to order surveillance without a court order under his power as commander in chief and as a result of a congressional resolution in response to the Sept. 11 attacks. Former Georgia Republican Congressmember Bob Barr was slated to introduce Gore. Below are excerpts from Gore's 7,658-word speech, the full text of which can be read at rawstory.com/news/2005/Text_of_Gore_speech_0116.html or watched at www.c-span.org. --Karen Ocamb)

Congressman Barr and I have disagreed many times over the years, but we have joined together today with thousands of our fellow citizens -- Democrats and Republicans alike -- to express our shared concern that America's Constitution is in grave danger ...

As we begin this new year, the executive branch of our government has been caught eavesdropping on huge numbers of American citizens and has brazenly declared that it has the unilateral right to continue without regard to the established law enacted by Congress precisely to prevent such abuses. It is imperative that respect for the rule of law be restored in our country.

And that is why many of us have come here to Constitution Hall to sound an alarm and call upon our fellow citizens to put aside partisan differences insofar as it is possible to do so and join with us in demanding that our Constitution be defended and preserved.

[One] month ago, Americans awoke to the shocking news that ... the executive branch has been secretly spying on large numbers of Americans for the last four years and eavesdropping on, and I quote the report, "large volumes of telephone calls, e-mail messages, and other Internet traffic inside the United States." The New York Times reported that the president decided to launch this massive eavesdropping program "without search warrants or any new laws that would permit domestic intelligence collection."

During the period when this eavesdropping was still secret, the president seemed to go out of his way to reassure the American people on more than one occasion that, of course, judicial permission is required for any government spying on American citizens and that, of course, these constitutional safeguards were still in place.

But surprisingly, the president's soothing statements turned out to be false. Moreover, as soon as this massive domestic spying program was uncovered by the press, the president not only confirmed that the story was true, but in the next breath declared that he has no intention of stopping or of bringing these wholesale invasions of privacy to an end.

At present, we still have much to learn about the [National Security Agency's] domestic surveillance. What we do know about this pervasive wiretapping virtually compels the conclusion that the president of the United States has been breaking the law repeatedly and insistently.

A president who breaks the law is a threat to the very structure of our government. Our Founding Fathers were adamant that they had established a government of laws and not men. They recognized that the structure of government they had enshrined in our Constitution -- our system of checks and balances -- was designed with a central purpose of ensuring that it would govern through the rule of law ...

An executive who arrogates to himself the power to ignore the legitimate legislative directives of the Congress or to act free of the check of the judiciary becomes the central threat that the Founders sought to nullify in the Constitution -- an all-powerful executive too reminiscent of the king from whom they had broken free. In the words of James Madison, "The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny." ...

If the president has the inherent authority to eavesdrop on American citizens without a warrant, imprison American citizens on his own declaration, kidnap and torture, then what can't he do? ...

As a result of this unprecedented claim of new unilateral power, the executive branch has now put our constitutional design at grave risk. The stakes for America's democracy are far higher than has been generally recognized ...

I call upon Democratic and Republican members of Congress today to uphold your oath of office and defend the Constitution. Stop going along to get along. Start acting like the independent and co-equal branch of American government you are supposed to be under the Constitution of our country ...

We the people are -- collectively -- still the key to the survival of America's democracy. We must examine ourselves. We -- as Lincoln put it, "[e]ven we here" -- must examine our own role as citizens in allowing and not preventing the shocking decay and hollowing out and degradation of American democracy! It is time to stand up for the American system that we know and love! It is time to breathe new life back into America's democracy! ...

We have a duty as Americans to defend our citizens' right not only to life but also to liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It is therefore vital in our current circumstances that immediate steps be taken to safeguard our Constitution against the present danger posed by the intrusive overreaching on the part of the executive branch and the president's apparent belief that he need not live under the rule of law.

I endorse the words of Bob Barr, when he said, and I quote: "The president has dared the American people to do something about it. For the sake of the Constitution, I hope they will."

A special counsel should immediately be appointed by the attorney general to remedy the obvious conflict of interest that prevents him from investigating what many believe are serious violations of law by the president. ...

In closing, I mentioned that along with cause for concern, there is reason for hope. As I stand here today, I am filled with optimism that America is on the eve of a golden age in which the vitality of our democracy will be re-established by the people and will flourish more vibrantly than ever. Indeed I can feel it in this hall.

As Dr. King once said, "Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. If it is, let us trace its movements and pray that our own inner being may be sensitive to its guidance, for we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness that seems so close around us."