Wounded animals are most dangerous when back up against a corner. And King Bush's apologists, having limped to the end of a very tough year, are cornered animals and are behaving as such, spewing lies, fear, misinformation, and more lies.
The latest comes courtesy of William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, in the Washington Post:
A U.S. president has just received word that American counterterrorist operatives have captured a senior al Qaeda operative in Pakistan. Among his possessions are a couple of cell phones -- phones that contain several American phone numbers. In the wake of Sept. 11, 2001, what's a president to do?
If the president were taking the advice offered by some politicians and pundits in recent days, he would order the attorney general to go to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. The attorney general would ask that panel of federal judges for a warrant under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to begin eavesdropping on those telephone numbers, to determine whether any individual associated with those numbers was involved in terrorist activities.
But the attorney general might have to tell the president he might well not be able to get that warrant. FISA requires the attorney general to convince the panel that there is "probable cause to believe" that the target of the surveillance is an agent of a foreign power or a terrorist.
First of all, the US could initiate such spying immediately as the opportunity presented itself. So what's a president to do? Nothing. His intelligence agencies are already listening in on the calls.
Now, those agencies must get judicial approval within 72 hours of having initiated those wiretapping efforts. That's three days. Furthermore, the FISA judicial panel almost never turns down requests. Various sources vary on the number of denials, but it seems to be anywhere between zero and six denials out of about 15,000 requests.
The issue here isn't the effectiveness of the FISA procedure. As Feingold said:
[E]ven in the early hours when this revelation came out, no one claimed that the FISA procedure wasn't adequate; they just simply decided to do their own thing.
Current US law adequately protects the ability of the president and intelligence agencies protect the nation. No assertion to the contrary has been made. NONE. What we have is a president who thinks he is king and shouldn't be bothered with quaint Constitutional niceties.
Update: Josh has more.