Definitive, smashing, crushing blow to Bush’s illegal domestic spying by the Washington Post.
Bush has recently described the warrantless operation as “terrorist surveillance” and summed it up by declaring that “if you’re talking to a member of al Qaeda, we want to know why.” But officials conversant with the program said a far more common question for eavesdroppers is whether, not why, a terrorist plotter is on either end of the call. The answer, they said, is usually no.
Fewer than 10 U.S. citizens or residents a year, according to an authoritative account, have aroused enough suspicion during warrantless eavesdropping to justify interception of their domestic calls, as well. That step still requires a warrant from a federal judge, for which the government must supply evidence of probable cause.
This is out of thousands upon thousands of wiretaps. Each one of those wiretaps, for which probable cause was required under the 4th Amendment and a warrant was required under the FISA law, which no President before Bush has ever defied, was a crime.
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