Domestic Spying before 9/11

The story has been out for a day or two that Bush first authorized warrantless surveillance of Americans even before 9/11.

If true, this has some important implications. First, it means that Bush's arguments for why he is authorized to do this completely fall apart. After all, he says Congress authorized this in the Iraq war vote, but, if he started it before 9/11, he started it before Congress authorized it (which, of course, they never did). He also says the power to do it is inherent in his powers as Commander-in-Chief during war time, but we weren't in war time prior to 9/11. So all of his arguments about its legality fail.

Second, it shows that domestic surveillance is probably not that effective as a device to prevent terrorism. After all, the bad guys got us on 9/11 even though we were spying on our own citizens.

Third, it raises an important question about what the purpose really was, since it's pretty clear nobody in Bush's administration except Richard Clarke was paying any attention to the terrorist threat. Was this politically motivated from the very start? Were they trying to spy on their political enemies? What other reasons for it might there have been?

If we could ever get rid of the Republicans in Congress (and some of the Dems too, for that matter), we might find out.