W, in his own words.

Thanks to Jeremy, whose blog Social Memory Complex is consistently provocative and informative, for digging this up:

Secondly, there are such things as roving wiretaps. Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires — a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we’re talking about chasing down terrorists, we’re talking about getting a court order before we do so. It’s important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution.

The President seems to have blatantly broken the law here. Even if you agree that this kind of spying is necessary for national security, there ARE laws in place that prohibit it. What I really don't get, though, is that the laws that are in place do not make it very difficult to get the OK to run surveillance. There's even provisions for emergencies that make it OK to do it without a warrant provided you apply for one after the fact. Why did Bush feel it necessary to go above the law, and even more troubling, why does he seem to think he was entitled to? Explanations offered by Alberto Gonzales really make no sense and have been rebuffed by conservative and liberal scholars alike.

Then, it turns out Bush personally tried to stop the NY Times from running the story.

It may not be a very good thing for the country, but impeachment does not seem completely out of the question here.