the trouble with spying and secrecy

From the BBC website

[ QUOTE ]
President George W Bush has admitted he authorised secret monitoring of communications within the United States in the wake of the 2001 terror attacks.

The monitoring was of "people with known links to al-Qaeda and related terrorist organisations", he said.

[/ QUOTE ]

More importantly, the monitoring was without judicial consent. I appreciate that this was considered necessary, but surely only further points to an "imperial presidency"? Or is that just a biased European view?