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December 17, 2005
Not Warranted

Josh Mashall has another bit of damaging evidence against the administration's defense of their secret eavesdropping.

Their major excuse for not obtaining warrants for the spying is that it would have taken valuable time, and they had to spy on these people, like, yesterday.

Well, as it turns out—surprise, surprise—this is a lie.

... the FISA Court is specifically designed to get warrants okayed really quickly and it almost never rejects a government application...

Additionally,

It turns out that FISA specifically empowers the Attorney General or his designee to start wiretapping on an emergency basis even without a warrant so long as a retroactive application is made for one "as soon as practicable, but not more than 72 hours after the Attorney General authorizes such surveillance." (see specific citation, here).

Talking Points Memo

So there you go. There is no lawful rationale for what the president authorized. He is basically asserting that he can break any law any time he pleases, if he thinks he needs to. As Marshall points out, this would include the McCain Amendment forbidding torture.

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