In case you have been living under a rock for the past couple days you’ve heard about the New York Times article detailing how Bush secretly lifted restrictions on the NSA against spying on US targets. Now I find these changes troubling, not so much because it is obviously wrong to listen in on international calls originating in the United States but because I find secret unilateral deciscions weakening civil rights troubling. So long as there is an absolute barrier to prevent this sort of information being used in criminal investigations I might even be willing to support this sort of limited program, though in light of the patriot act getting rid of the famous “wall” I’m not sure if there still is such a protection. However, this is an issue reasonable people might disagree about. I might write a post about this later but first I need to get more evidence and do more thinking.

However, I’m currently listening to Jim Leher’s interview with President Bush and was absolutely appaled to hear him refuse to discuss this issue because he doesn’t want to jeapordize ongoing investigations and operations. I mean come on can anyone believe that acknowledging or offering general justifications is going to imperil investigations when it is already on the front page of every newspaper in the country. What are we supposed to believe some Al Queda operative is going to think, ohh well if my arch enemy Bush won’t confirm or deny it I’ll just assume my phone isn’t being tapped. Perhaps there is something to be said for always refusing to confirm or deny stories about intelligence operations but the administration is perfectly willing to deny things they aren’t doing which might look very bad. Besides if that is why he isn’t answering he could just come out and say thing instead of implying that answering that question could endanger particular operations.

Sure all politicians dodge questions but Bush is asking the country to trust him on matters of security. If he is willing to disingenuously use security worries for political gain even republicans should be sucpiscious. Combine this with his claims that even a day without the patriot act would be exceptionally dangerous but unwillingness to sign a three month extension to give the congress time for consideration and investigation and the overall picture is very worrying. Not that I’ve ever thought he was a good president but this just seems like a whole new level.

Sorry for the standard political post, I usually like to avoid these.

UPDATE: And now Bush has admitted that he did this, clearly things changed over the night so he wouldn’t be imperiling sources or methods.