[Rodeo]

At the news conference today, President Bush repeatedly cited the “need for speed” as the reason his administration has illegally ordered the National Security Agency to spy on Americans without benefit of search warrants. That would be a compelling argument, if only it were true:

QUESTION: Getting back to the domestic spying issue for a moment, according to FISA's own records, it's received nearly 19,000 requests for wiretaps or search warrants since 1979, rejected just five of them. It also operates in secret, so security shouldn't be a concern. And it can be applied retroactively. Given such a powerful tool of law enforcement is at your disposal, sir, why did you see fit to sidetrack that process?

BUSH: We used the process to monitor. But also, this is a different era, different war. It's a war where people are changing phone numbers and phone calls, and they're moving quick. And we've got to be able to detect and prevent. I keep saying that. But this is -- it requires quick action.

FISA warrants can be obtained 72 hours AFTER the domestic surveillance has begun, that’s 3 days to obtain a retroactive warrant. And as we now know, the chances of being denied a warrant from a FISA Court are statistically zero.

Three days. Zero percent chance of being denied. Yet this was still too much "oversight," so a secret Executive Order suspended the Fourth Amendment for any American unlucky enough to find themselves in the Bush/Cheney cross hairs.

So why didn't the president just ask for retroactive warrants? We don’t know, because he ducked the question, then he cited a bogus reason for his illegal actions, the “need for speed.” This is calculated, premeditated lying. There’s no better term for it.