The apologists keep on keeping on

Virtually every conservative website I read is doing a knee jerk defense of the Bush administration on the spying issue. I've seen defenses ranging from Clinton and Carter did it, to what if there was an imminent threat, to they didn't break the law. Boulderdash! Everyone else does it doesn't work with my teenager and it shouldn't work with a President. Imminent threats are covered under the current Patriot Act and if Bush didn't technically break the law, he pushed it further than he should have and surely violated the intent of current laws.

My contention on this issue has been that the Bush administration has seriously overstepped its authority. One, the Patriot Act allows for the Government to get warrants in arrears for emergency situations. In effect, start spying and then get the warrant. Two, the administration has offered no information of imminent terror activity that was thwarted, nor have they explained why, if they needed to move fast for tactical reasons, they didn't go to the FISA court afterwards. All of this leads me to believe that they could have gone for a warrant (and legally needed to go for a warrant) but didn't. I question why. Today the Star Ledger's editorial staff agreed.

Warrants aren't hard to get. A special FISA court has always granted them quickly and has rarely turned down a request. Bush's insistence that even a delay of a couple of hours is too much, hence his secret 2002 order to the NSA, doesn't stand up. The rules allow him, in an emergency, to order the spying first and then go to court for permission.

Where the Ledger is on target is their recitation of the many administration's indiscretions that have led someone like me, despite my conservative leanings, to distrust this administration.

"Spying on Americans' phone calls. Shipping foreigners to secret overseas prison camps where torture may be routine. FBI surveillance of environmental and anti-poverty organizations. Keeping a Pentagon database on the activities of peaceful antiwar protests, including one at William Paterson University.

The revelations of President Bush ignoring national and international law and civil rights in the name of combating terrorism keep growing and are bound to continue unless the courts and Congress begin to take seriously their constitutional duty of oversight."

For the past five years this administration has consistently pushed the boundaries of the law to get its way and expand the power of the executive. Bush's poll numbers show that the American people are looking at this administration and have found it wanting.