Unable to get comfortable with what NSA was proposing, Qwest’s lawyers asked NSA to take its proposal to the FISA court. According to the sources, the agency refused.
The NSA’s explanation did little to satisfy Qwest’s lawyers. “They told (Qwest) they didn’t want to do that because FISA might not agree with them,” one person recalled. For similar reasons, this person said, NSA rejected Qwest’s suggestion of getting a letter of authorization from the U.S. attorney general’s office. A second person confirmed this version of events.
Between this scandal and the Bush administration’s illegal wiretapping program that also bypasses the FISA court, I’ve got to wonder: why is our executive branch afraid of the FISA court?
They say that if you don’t have anything to hide then you have nothing to worry about. Well, if Bush has nothing to hide, then why is he so afraid of the FISA court?