Since December 16, 2005, when the New York Times published its article revealing Bush’s program of spying domestically without court-approved warrants, I have been pointing out that no major media have asked the most important question related to the matter, namely: Why was existing law deemed inadequate?

That existing law allows the government to gather information through spying when it believes there is an imminent security threat. In such a situation, a wiretap may be placed immediately, with the proviso that a court-approved warrant be obtained within 72 hours.

Today’s New York Times contains a hint that we can expect to see my question go completely unanswered.

Buried in an article titled “President Uses Vacation to Prepare Agenda for 2006” is this: “Mr. Bush’s aides and intelligence officials say they plan to refuse to offer more details in public on why they believe the technology of the program made it necessary to bypass the secret court designed to authorize wiretapping efforts inside the United States.”

Either the press is brain dead, or it is operating in fear of the Bush administration. The above paragraph makes clear that the administration does not want Americans thinking critically about Bush’s warrantless domestic spying; indeed, it doesn’t want us thinking about the matter at all. And they are crafty and deceitful in how they attempt to steer us to that point. The question is not why the technology of the program made it necessary to bypass the court; the question is why the existing law providing for emergency wiretaps was not adequate. By saying that they can’t talk about why the technology of the program made bypassing the court necessary, they give the impression that somehow, talking about that specific angle would give secrets to “the enemy.”

Think about it. If that sentence above had instead read “Mr. Bush’s aides and intelligence officials say they plan to refuse to offer more details in public on why they believe the existing law made it necessary to bypass the secret court designed to authorize wiretapping efforts inside the United States,” the whole matter would be framed differently. The administration would not be able to answer why the existing law was inadequate, because the existing law IS adequate to counterterrorism.

The warrantless domestic spying program gives the Bush administration a means to persecute those who disagree with its policies and it gives it an opportunity to manipulate the 2006 elections. If the only people who have knowledge of the inner workings of this programs are Republicans with time-tested loyalty to Bush, how can anybody outside those circles judge whether the warrantless spying has been restricted to those suspected of having a connection to Islamic terrorists?