Most discussion of the NSA wiretap program misses the key point.  Of course it is reasonable for wiretaps and other surveillance mechanisms to be applied in order to locate terrorists in the United States.  They key issue is whether the laws controlling those wiretaps, and the Constitution's protections against arbitrary search and seizures, can be violated in doing so.

President Bush has stated that his powers to ignore the FISA statute comes from his Article II powers as commander in chief of the armed forces in wartime.  But that is simply untenable: the "war" he's talking about, the war on terror, will never end, since there will always be terrorists somewhere who wish us ill.  If their presence is all that's required for the President to assume dictatorial powers, then this nation is no longer a republic.

Unfortunately, that's the position President Bush has taken: that as long as the war on terror exists, no law bounds his options.  If the President refuses to submit to the rule of law, he should be impeached, or Congress should just go home.