The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review upheld significant portions of Bush’s wiretapping program in an August ruling it recently declassified. From The New York Times /smirk/:
The court decision, made in August 2008 by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, came in an unclassified, redacted form.
The decision marks the first time since the disclosure of the National Security Agency’s warrantless eavesdropping program three years ago that an appellate court has addressed the constitutionality of the federal government’s wiretapping powers. In validating the government’s wide authority to collect foreign intelligence, it may offer legal credence to the Bush administration’s repeated assertions that the president has the power to act without specific court approval in ordering national security eavesdropping that may involve Americans.
The Aug. 22 appeals court decision upheld a secret ruling issued last year by the intelligence court that it oversees, known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance, or FISA, court. In that initial opinion, the secret court found that Congress had acted within its authority in August 2007 when it passed a hotly debated law known as the Protect America Act, which gave the executive branch broad power to eavesdrop on international communications.
Court’s redacted opinion is here.
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Bush’s economic conservitism and liberal immigration policies are debatable.
Bush’s patriotism and his steel against terrorism is solid.
Period.