Despite the current sense of loss and defeat that many on the left are feeling with the elevation of another right wing ideologue to the highest court of the land, our attention, and that of our Democratic Senators, must now turn to the upcoming Judiciary Committee’s hearings on “Wartime Executive Power and the NSA’s Surveillance Authority.”

So what do we already know about President Bush’s secretive program that has been monitoring domestic communications without judicial oversight since 2002?

• First, the simple fact is that Americans do not support warrantless spying. A recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll said that a majority of Americans think the Bush administration should be required to obtain a court order before wiretapping. Despite Chris Matthews’ belief that the issue is a good political one for Bush and friends, Americans believe in the 4th amendment.
• The administration has lied consistently throughout the revelation of this program. Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez even lied to Congress while under oath during his confirmation hearings when asked about warrantless eavesdropping as a “hypothetical situation.” If the program is constitutional, as the White House’s lawyers would wish for you to believe, why the constant lying?
• Karl Rove would like to use this issue as a political cudgel to go after Democrats. Right wing pundit after right wing pundit has tried to paint disapproval of the NSA program as coming solely from the left. In reality, Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE), Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) have all expressed their doubts about the illegality of the program.
• The administration claims that the Constitutional standard of “probable cause” for obtaining a FISA warrant is too much of a burden in light of modern technology and a global war. Then why did they refuse to support a bill in 2002 by Sen. Michael DeWine (R-OH) that would have lowered this standard? Perhaps because Bush was already breaking the law and preferred to operate in secret.
• And the bottom line: Warrantless domestic spying has made us less safe. Because the information captured through the NSA spying was obtained in an illegal and extra-constitutional manner, it may very well be inadmissible in court and could lead to potential terrorists getting off. Legitimate cases could be in danger because the Bush administration refused to use legal means to collect intelligence.

This week will be quite interesting. Let’s see if the Democratic members of the Judiciary Cmte (Leahy, Kennedy, Biden, Kohl, Feinstein, Feingold, Schumer, Durbin) can hold Gonzalez’s feet to the fire and point out to the American people the illegal actions of King George.