RIP, U.S. Constitution

Bush Secretly Lifted Some Limits on Spying in U.S. After 9/11, Officials Say

Months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials.

...

Several officials said the eavesdropping program had helped uncover a plot by Iyman Faris, an Ohio trucker and naturalized citizen who pleaded guilty in 2003 to supporting Al Qaeda by planning to bring down the Brooklyn Bridge with blowtorches.

With blowtorches? He must not have realized that his eye lasers or mind bullets would have been much more effective.

Granted, I am basing this snark on all of two sentences in a newspaper report. But I am not duly impressed by this "success story" of the Bubble Boy administration. One whacko with a plan and a cell phone does not make for a convincing threat to national security.