Why Did They Cheat When They Could Have Won By the Rules ?

The Patriot Act hidden agenda is to permit security forces and the military - social regressive allies of the corporate power structure - to expand power over US progressive movements. Why would Bush illegally expand their reach when he could easily have gotten court approval? Because he wanted to establish the precedent of acting illegally, rather than the precedent of legally acting in this way.

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Bush secretly expanded spying in U.S. , officials say

James Risen and Eric Lichtblau / New York Times News Service

WASHINGTON -- Months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials.

Under a presidential order signed in 2002, the intelligence agency has monitored the international telephone calls and international e-mail messages of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people inside the United States without warrants over the past three years in an effort to track possible "dirty numbers" linked to al-Qaida, the officials said. The agency, they said, still seeks warrants to monitor entirely domestic communications.