Answers are the easy part, Questions raise a doubt . . .

As details of the Administration's warrantless spying surface I have some serious questions about what is really going on.

The President said that the Foreign Intelligence Security Act which provides a 24/7 judge (11 of them) to issue warrants in less than an hour was too slow and that they had to move really fast.

There are a few problems with that. FISA has a provision that allows a wiretap without a warrant for up to 72 hours. Then the agency in question can get a retroactive warrant to continue monitoring communications. The law effectively allows a three day freebie to find out if there is reason to spy on someone. Spy first, then use the information gained to get a warrant. So much for probable cause.

So, if it really wasn't about speed, what was it about? The NSA is prohibited from spying on communications internal to the United States. Was it about internalizing the NSA spying? Was it about spying on others than suspected terrorists? Was it about spying on people who oppose Administration policies and activities? Is it a stretch to think that perhaps the program presented to the Senate Intelligence Committee was different from what actually went on?

These things we don't know but what do we know?

We know of 19,000 requests for warrants only 5 have been refused by the FISA court so it isn't about judicial blocking of intelligence gathering.

We know the FBI has admitted to spying on peace activists and environmentalist groups so it isn't all about terrorism.

We know that the New York Times sat on the NSA story for two years and that President Bush personally invited the editor to the White House to suppress the story so going public was a major concern for the President.

We know that the sources for the story came from inside the intelligence community so those who carried out the spying were very uncomfortable with it.

We know that senior members of the Senate Intelligence Committee objected to the operation taking the measure of writing letters of protest and sealing copies for future proof of that protest.

We know that one of the 11 FISA Judges has resigned in protest over the circumvention of the law so the Judiciary is taking the breech seriously.

We know that John Dean, Nixon's council during Watergate, said that Bush broke the law so someone intimate with the law and impeachment has doubts about this Administrations activities.

We know that Republicans control both houses of Congress so there will be no investigation.

Let the republicans do nothing and watch how quickly they are replaced with democrats. We will get an investigation IMHO.

investigation. There are enough libertarians in his district that will be doing it too. I think that the repukes will have to do something, because folks are mad.