Good news, bad news

Finally the NSA spying will be put under court control to prevent abuse. We'll file that under good news.

(Update below)

President George W. Bush's administration put a controversial domestic spying programme under supervision of a special court after months of sharp criticism over the eavesdropping.

Civil rights group had criticized the programme, in which Bush authorized the National Security Agency (NSA) to eavesdrop on phone calls and email between the US and abroad without a court warrant.

Despite legal challenges after the programme was revealed in press reports in 2005, the government had insisted that the president could legally authorize the NSA to eavesdrop on international communications it believes involve terror suspects without seeking court approval.

But in a letter to the top Democrat and Republican of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said on Wednesday Bush would not renew the Terrorist Surveillance Programme as it had found an effective and quick system to gain approval through an ultra-secretive court.

But you can also file that under bad news because its pure politics. First, it takes the wind out of the Dems' sails. They can gain no political capital by passing a bill to accomplish the same thing and two, it takes power away from the next president. The GOP can't take the chance of leaving such a power available to a Dem.

OK, I think the good outweighs the bad.

Update: But the good doesn't outweigh the bad now.

A day after announcing that it had scrubbed a controversial warrantless-surveillance program, the Bush administration refused to provide details to Congress of how a new court-review process for eavesdropping on terror suspects would work, triggering a fresh round of complaints and suspicions from Democrats.

At the same time, President Bush and other administration officials indicated that little had changed in the electronic eavesdropping program, originally launched after the Sept. 11 attacks, other than the fact that a court had finally blessed it.

All smoke and mirrors again.

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