AlterNet: Bush's Unlikely Co-conspirators

AlterNet: Bush's Unlikely Co-conspirators:

"The domestic spy scandal first looked like another unilateral move by a president bent on doing secretly what he refused to admit publicly. After 9/11, President Bush ordered the National Security Agency to surveil phone calls and emails of Americans in the U.S. In an amazing confession last month, Bush admitted disregarding the law in authorizing the spy program in 2002, opening himself to impeachment charges and NSA officials to criminal indictment.

Underscoring the gravity of the president's actions, last Friday the Congressional Research Service, a nonpartisan research arm of Congress, found that Bush apparently had no authority to bypass Congress in ordering domestic spying, saying in a polite understatement that the legal rationale 'does not seem to be as well-grounded.'

The congressional report is another blow to Bush's flimsy argument that his spying order is legal. But it is now clear that Bush has a second defense that is more difficult to dismiss: the claim that by briefing selected members of Congress on the program, he essentially sought and gained legislative approval for domestic spying.

Indeed, at least seven Democrats in the House were briefed by the Bush administration on the spy program as far back as four years ago. Among those briefed include Nancy Pelosi, House Democratic leader. Last week, Pelosi released a previously classified letter documenting some of her concerns about NSA spying. The question that went unanswered is why Pelosi -- and the other Democrats, including former South Dakota Sen. Tom Daschle and West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller -- never blew the whistle publicly on the program."