Lost in the tea-bagging mania comes some new information about the NSA's wiretapping activities:
And in one previously undisclosed episode, the N.S.A. tried to wiretap a member of Congress without a warrant, an intelligence official with direct knowledge of the matter said.
According to the piece, the eavesdropping never panned out in this case.
Some things just never seem to be important until it hits home. Perhaps this will be enough to light a fire under our elected officials to get to some prosecutions.
These revelations appear to have come as part of a regular review of the program.
As part of a periodic review of the agency’s activities, the department "detected issues that raised concerns," the statement said. Justice Department officials then "took comprehensive steps to correct the situation and bring the program into compliance" with the law and court orders, the statement said. It added that Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. went to the national security court to seek a renewal of the surveillance program only after new safeguards were put in place.
I don't think I want to know how many such reviews under Bush raised similar red flags that got conveniently shoved into the dust bin.
The NY Times piece is short, but a worthy read. It smells of something bubbling up in an ongoing FBI investigation:
[A] senior F.B.I. agent recently came forward with what the inspector general’s office described as accusations of "significant misconduct" in the surveillance program, people with knowledge of the investigation said. Those accusations are said to involve whether the N.S.A. made Americans targets in eavesdropping operations based on insufficient evidence tying them to terrorism.
"Significant misconduct"...in the Bush administration surveillance program? Who'da thunk it?
While I am not holding my breath, the eternal optimist in me wants to think this is part of the long march toward justice on this.