Apparently the FISA court was denying or modifying Bush's wiretapping
requests at 
unprecedented rate, and that is why he went around them. More here and here
Hmmmmmmmm, more MSM lies eh?
Secret court modified wiretap
requests
Intervention may have led Bush to bypass panel
Government records show that the administration was encountering unprecedented second-guessing by the secret federal surveillance court when President Bush decided to bypass the panel and order surveillance of U.S.-based terror suspects without the court's approval.
FDD weighs in on purely rational position:
SPY GAMES: If an al-Qaeda operative in Karachi phones someone in Paris, France, obviously the President would have the authority to listen to that conversation without a warrant.
But if an al-Qaeda operative in Karachi phones someone in Paris, Texas -- the President would not have that authority to listen to that conversation without a warrant?
Gathering evidence for use in a criminal proceeding is one thing -- and that should require a warrant.
But intelligence gathering is different. Evidence concerns a crime that has been committed. Intelligence is the collecting of clues about crimes that can still be prevented.
We're living in a different world and fighting a different kind of war. Adults in the U.S. Senate -- there are at least a few -- should back off the polemics and begin crafting legislation that balances 21st century national security needs with adequate protection of civil liberties.
John Schmidt, who severed in the Clinton Justice Department, provides a cogent analysis of this issue here.
David Rivkin and Lee Casey analyze the relevant laws here.
UPDATE: FISA vs. the Constitution, Congress can't usurp the president's power to spy on America's enemies. Robert Turner, Wall Street Journal
In the continuing saga of the surveillance "scandal," ........... in order, it is important to step back and put things in historical context.
America is at war with a dangerous enemy. Since 9/11, the president, our intelligence services and our military forces have done a truly extraordinary job--taking the war to our enemies and keeping them from conducting a single attack within this country (so far). But we are still very much at risk, and those who seek partisan political advantage by portraying efforts to monitor communications between suspected foreign terrorists and (often unknown) Americans as being akin to Nixon's "enemies lists" are serving neither their party nor their country.Our Constitution is the supreme law, and it cannot be amended by a simple statute like the FISA law. Every modern president and every court of appeals that has considered this issue has upheld the independent power of the president to collect foreign intelligence without a warrant. The Supreme Court may ultimately clarify the competing claims; but until then, the president is right to continue monitoring the communications of our nation's declared enemies, even when they elect to communicate with people within our country.
Mr. Turner, co-founder of the Center for National
Security Law at the University of Virginia School of Law, served as counsel to
the President's Intelligence Oversight Board, 1982-84.
Read it all:
Here
