My guess about what's going on with regard to the President's domestic surveillance program is this; they were always rather close to getting 98% of what they wanted, but there were provisions for them to fudge it and they resented anyone telling them that their fudge was fudge.
As best as I can tell, the Bush Administration has backed down from a previously loudly defended 'right' and complied with the fallback position they told the country was untenable a year ago. And somehow I doubt that the 'battlefield conditions' have changed significantly in that regard.
So there will be no more warrantless wiretaps, and the egregious examples that Right radio had navigated us to are no longer to be considered high priorities to the Bush White House. In other words FISA will no longer be evaded.
My position changed, and the last thing I said in February 2006 was that, prior to my previous assertions, the system was broken and chances were that Bush would be violating the law. Today the rule of law is established to the standards of the most rational of the opposition to Bush's envelope pushing among which I was a late joiner.
What's left open is whether or not the FISA process itself has been speeded up. I cannot tell by a quick parsing of CQ, but you may be able to.
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