Say what?

"Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so." - George Bush, April 20, 2004

"To save American lives, we must be able to act fast and to detect these (terrorist) conversations so we can prevent new attacks. So, consistent with U.S. law and the Constitution, I authorize the interception of international communications of people with known links to al Qaeda and related terrorist organizations." - George Bush, December 19, 2005.

So what is it? Do you need a court order or not? And just where in the Constitution or US law does it say that you can get a wiretap of Americans without a court order? The founders of this country set up our government with a system of checks and balances. Hence the three branches of the Federal government (Executive, Legislative, and Judicial) were designed to provide a separation of powers. It was designed to prevent an individual from gaining too much control. I understand that we need to intercept the communications of terrorists, but there needs to be oversight and protection to insure that our rights and civil liberties are not being infringed.