Spying

Here is a question none of the president's loud-mouthed supporters seem quite able to answer:

Why is the president, four years after September 11, choosing to ignore a statute (the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (fisa)) that he could so easily have asked the Republican-controlled Congress to change? [Desmond Prince in a letter to TNR]

If fisa is anachronistic, then we need to develop a new set of rules. The fact of the matter is that the administration has instead focused its energies on circumventing existing law, rather than reforming or modifying it. In the immediate aftermath of the Sep 11 attacks, I might have understood why the administration chose this path. But four years have passed. There has been ample time to suggest changes to the law. Instead, Bush appears to embrace the very disturbing view that laws no longer apply to the president and his men.

[Updated December 24, 2006]