DOJ Slight of Hand?

Dept of Justice begins an investigation into the leak of BushCo's covert warrantless spying on Americans.

Happy New Year to the BushCo administration! While certainly, all leaks of classified material to the public should be investigated, as in the case of Libby and Rove's treasonous outing of a CIA agent, is it coincidence that the focus is away from the President's crime? Any naive person would wonder so and there must be plenty of them out there. The point here is that BushCo broke one of the same laws that impeached Nixon. This has been subject to interpretation, but the point is clear - the FISA court was set up for these very purposes and the court has almost never denied a retroactive warrant request.

Some fool on NPR this morning claimed that a computer program (aka Echelon or Carnivore) was used by the NSA and that the computer is following the conversations and emails, but cannot indicate where they are coming from or where they are going at any given time. He also mentioned (and I am paraphrasing here)that the 1978 FISA law is outdated now that the new tracking technology is in place and that the Congress or the President must change the law. What? It shouldn't be there in the first place...

Administration officials insisted that Bush has the power to conduct the warrantless surveillance under the Constitution's war powers provision. They also argued that Congress gave Bush the power to conduct such a secret program when it authorized the use of military force against terrorism in a resolution adopted within days of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

What is at issue here is abuse of power. Not whether our government and security forces have the right to track terrorists. BushCo still has to follow the law. The "authorization" from Congress was not a formal declaration of war against a known actual entity, it was a blank check to track down the terrorists who attacked New York and Washington. So, it is a hard sell by this administration to say the Congress gave them the authority to spy on Americans without warrants and notifying the FISA court - especially when very few congresspeople and senators actually knew of the secret program.