In three years he NEVER EVEN TRIED to get Congress to change the law that he now claims was so onerous he needed to break it. From the NYT:
President Bush did not ask Congress to include provisions for the N.S.A. domestic surveillance program as part of the Patriot Act and has not sought any other laws to authorize the operation....Ah, so they thought Congress, our elected representatives, wouldn't make it legal for Bush to do what he did, so he didn't go to Congress, he just broke the law anyway. That shows that the White House had concerns that what they were doing was illegal. As for the second canard of an argument, that's utter bullshit - Al Qaeda is going to be tipped off by Bush asking for greater wire tapping authority? Huh? When you asked for the authority you currently have in the Patriot Act, to tape our phones with the special court warrant, did they make phone tapping no longer useful because Al Qaeda knew? Utter bullshit.
Seeking Congressional approval was also viewed as politically risky because the proposal would be certain to face intense opposition on civil liberties grounds. The administration also feared that by publicly disclosing the existence of the operation, its usefulness in tracking terrorists would end, officials said.
