The media must learn the difference between a wiretap and "Echelon."

[patcox2]

Noone is getting it. Liberals are talking in terms of "why couldn't he just go through FISA." Liberals are wasting their time arguing that Bush could easily have obtained FISA approval for what he was doing. Bush and his administration are purposely muddying the water by saying things like "we only listened to people who were talking to people with known al queda links."

Iin short, everyone is talking as if what the NSA does is just your typical, run of the mill law enforcement wiretap.

A typical law enforcement wiretap, the kind you can get a warrant for under FISA, allows the government to tap a person's phone, or even any phone that an identified subject might use, and listen to that person's conversations. Thats what FISA authorizes, targeted wiretaps, constitutional wiretaps authorized by a constitutional warrant that identifies the specific target of the tap.

Thats not what the NSA does. Thats not what Bush was doing. FISA does not and cannot authorize what Bush was doing, because its unconstitutional from the get go.

FISA cannot authorize the blanket monitoring of all telephone calls, a'la Echelon.

That is what Bush was doing.

The media must learn the difference, because arguing about whether the "wiretaps" would have been authorized under FISA is missing the point, its not a wiretap program. Its the wholesale interception of all telephone communications.

Its indefensible. By muddying the water and engaging in complicated legal arguments, the media makes it look as if it is defensible, and supports the right wing meme of "the only people who care about this issue are law professors and scholars, not real americans trying to protect against terrorist attacks" as Katie Couric put it.