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If you google for and read some more in depth on this issue, you will find that although it is true that the secret court is fairly speedy in its mostly rubber stamp approvals once the issue has been heard, that it nonetheless is very time consuming to prepare the matter for the court and get it on the docket and heard. That shows that there is in fact an issue of urgency in many of these matters that is hampered by the entire process.

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That doesn't have anything to do with whether the wiretaps are legal or not. There is a process in place to legally place the wiretaps and the President is delibrately ignoring it and the law.

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That process must not hamper or prevent operational necessities which occasionally require speedy action. The process is not > than our safety from terrorists when those operational necessities do not involve impinging on liberties on a large scale.

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I really doubt the need for speedy action. None of the 9/11 hijackers were U.S. citizens and they were in the country for months or years without being detected. But your point is taken, that's what Pres. is argueing.

Does anybody think, in this day and age of encryption codes that no government can crack, that al-quayda is going to openly transmit its plans via phones, when they can just email them in unbreakable code?

Surely the terrorists are aware of wiretaps and the vulnerability of phone conversations vs. the invulnerability of modern encryption codes.