While I was out of town, President Bush finally addressed the worst example from his long list of statements in 2004-2005 implying that all wiretaps require a court order.
On April 20, 2004, he said:
Secondly, there are such things as roving wiretaps. Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution.
Here's his response to a question about this statement during an exchange with the press on Sunday:
Q In 2004, when you were doing an event about the Patriot Act, in your remarks you had said that any wiretapping required a court order, and that nothing had changed. Given that we now know you had prior approval for this NSA program, were you in any way misleading? THE PRESIDENT: I was talking about roving wire taps, I believe, involved in the Patriot Act. This is different from the NSA program. The NSA program is a necessary program. I was elected to protect the American people from harm. And on September the 11th, 2001, our nation was attacked. And after that day, I vowed to use all the resources at my disposal, within the law, to protect the American people, which is what I have been doing, and will continue to do. And the fact that somebody leaked this program causes great harm to the United States.
There's an enemy out there. They read newspapers, they listen to what you write, they listen to what you put on the air, and they react. And it seems logical to me that if we know there's a phone number associated with al Qaeda and/or an al Qaeda affiliate, and they're making phone calls, it makes sense to find out why. They attacked us before, they will attack us again if they can. And we're going to do everything we can to stop them.
Talk about Clintonian parsing! Bush said "any time the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed." Even though he was speaking about roving wiretaps specifically, his language clearly suggested that all wiretaps required court orders.
In addition, we know that the FISA court will approve virtually any request backed by evidence, which means that Bush is stretching the phrase "associated with al Qaeda and/or an al Qaeda affiliate" to the limit.
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