Today's Good News?

"Bush Signs Law to Widen Legal Reach for Wiretapping"

According to one analyst, "This more or less legalizes the NSA program," which (of course) was first exposed by The New York Times almost two years ago. While the bill signed by the President provides a legal framework for the surveillance program, there is one slight problem. Thanks to the Times, terrorists are acutely aware of our efforts to monitor their communications, and they've improved their own security practices.

We can only wonder how much more effective the surveillance effort might have been had the Times not published their little "exclusive" back in December 2005. Yesterday's bill-signing represents a milestone event in the effort to monitor terrorist communications, but so was the Times article. Even with expanded surveillance powers, we can only wonder how much we're missing, thanks to our friends at the NYT.