[Chris Alger]

The shoddy argumentation evidenced in your link is characteristic of Bush apologetics. There is no dispute or controversy over whether Bush can eavesdrop of foreign communications without a warrant. The issue, which Schmidt addresses only obliquely, is whether the President can conduct warrentless searches on U.S. citizens. The White House position is that the President's status as commander-in-chief during the now continuous "wartime" means that no U.S. citizen has any constitutional protection from encroachment by the Executive branch -- that the President can use one vague phrase in the Constitution to erase all the others.

And, of course, there's always the howler: "But we cannot eliminate the need for extraordinary action in the kind of unforeseen circumstances presented by Sept. 11." Bin Laden was at the top of the FBI's most wanted list the day before 9/11. Islamicist terrorists had previously attacked the same target. The intelligence services reported that al Qaeda was "determined" to attack on U.S. soil. A blue-ribbon commission expressly warned, after more than two eyars of investigation, that terrorists attacks on U.S. soil were not only foreseeable but "likely." This is the sort of transparent deception that persuaded tens of millions of Republicans not only to condone and tolerate mass murder in Iraq but also to jettison their own, paid-in-blood rights. The greater threat to Americans is not from without, but from within.