Who's Afraid of George W. Bush?

"The law also gave the administration greater power to force telecommunications companies to cooperate with such spying operations. The companies can now be compelled to cooperate by orders from the attorney general and the director of national intelligence."

Charlie Savage writes in the Boston Globe that the new law doesn't even limit such surveillance to suspected terrorists: "Instead, it allows executive-branch agencies to conduct oversight-free surveillance of all international calls and e-mails, including those with Americans on the line, with the sole requirement that the intelligence-gathering is 'directed at a person reasonably believed to be located outside the United States.' . . .

"Legal specialists who have criticized the expansion of executive power during Bush's tenure compared the law to the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which expanded the White House's power over detainees in the war on terrorism, and the Iraq war authorization in 2002.

"Both times, Bush abruptly urged Congress to give him greater national security powers shortly before lawmakers went on recess, warning that there was no time to wait. That strategy was echoed in the White House's sudden rush to enact the Protect America Act last week."

Walter Pincus writes in The Washington Post that the law "gives Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales responsibility for creating the broad procedures determining whose telephone calls and e-mails are collected. It also gives McConnell and Gonzales the role of assessing compliance with those procedures."

Yes, that's right: Oversight will be in the hands of the same officials who carry the program out.

Attack on the Media

Eric Lichtblau writes in the New York Times: "The White House maintained Monday that the surveillance measure signed into law by President Bush over the weekend did not give the government any sweeping new powers to eavesdrop on Americans without court warrants.

"The chief concern of the White House centered on an assertion by Democrats, civil rights advocates and news organizations that the legislation in effect gave legal authorization to the National Security Agency's once-secret wiretapping program. That program, approved by Mr. Bush soon after the Sept. 11 attacks, permitted the agency to eavesdrop without a court warrant on Americans' international e-mail messages and telephone calls, an operation that provoked intense debate about its legality.

"The new measure, signed into law by the president on Sunday, allows intelligence officials to eavesdrop without a warrant on international phone calls or e-mail messages to or from an American inside the United States, but only if they conclude that the 'target' is outside this country. The legislation gives broad discretion to the attorney general and the director of national intelligence, rather than a judge, in deciding how those complicated surveillance decisions are made.

"Critics of the measure, which expires in six months, maintain that whether or not an American on United States soil is considered the 'target' of an eavesdropping operation, the effect is the same: an end run around constitutional rights. But administration officials heatedly disputed that interpretation."

The White House went so far yesterday as to issue a statement in which spokesman Tony Fratto criticized Risen's front-page story from Monday as "highly misleading": "Revolutionary changes in technology have occurred since FISA was enacted in 1978, and those changes have resulted in FISA -- contrary to the intent of Congress in 1978 -- often requiring the government to get a court order to collect information on foreign terrorists and other foreign targets located overseas," Fratto wrote. "The new law makes clear that a court order is not required to conduct surveillance of foreign intelligence targets located overseas.

"But under FISA, court approval is required for the government to target an individual located in the United States, and nothing in the new law changes that."