I'm no lawyer, but as far as I can tell the actions of the Bush administration are completely illegal, all the more so since it appears that some surveillance of purely domestic US communication is taking place, presumably by mistake.
Their rationale seems to be that the executive branch has virtually unlimited power in a time of self-declared and indefinite war. To make it extreme, I suppose by the same token you could argue it would be legal to shoot US citizens sleeping at home if the executive branch said it was justified.
You have to wonder though why they did this when they could easily have obtained legal warrants for the same stated purpose (after the fact if necessary). One relevant point may be given in the following Slate article from 2002 on then Attorney General John Ashcroft's request to weaken the requirements on foreign surveillance for FISA warrants, further blurring the line between criminal investigations of any kind and foreign intelligence investigation. The FISA response, linked there, rejecting his request also makes interesting reading.
Their rationale seems to be that the executive branch has virtually unlimited power in a time of self-declared and indefinite war. To make it extreme, I suppose by the same token you could argue it would be legal to shoot US citizens sleeping at home if the executive branch said it was justified.
You have to wonder though why they did this when they could easily have obtained legal warrants for the same stated purpose (after the fact if necessary). One relevant point may be given in the following Slate article from 2002 on then Attorney General John Ashcroft's request to weaken the requirements on foreign surveillance for FISA warrants, further blurring the line between criminal investigations of any kind and foreign intelligence investigation. The FISA response, linked there, rejecting his request also makes interesting reading.