To echo Byron’s excellent piece today, the breathtaking hypocrisy of those who played partisan politics with our national security by railing about the NSA’s terrorist surveillance program has long been evident. Earlier this year, I wrote this article about the official position of the Clinton Justice Dept’s Office of Legal Counsel that presidents are authorized under the Constitution to ignore statutes they believe are unconstitutional. Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick testified that the president maintained constitutional authority to conduct warrantless searches when FISA was amended to add search warrant authority. President Clinton ignored the War Powers Act (not to mention the Security Council) in dispatching our military to the former Yugoslavia. This is an old story. Would that the mainstream press took time out from Bush-bashing to cover it.