update on last weeks fear-mongering

NYT's article on the wiretapping law that just expired

Even with the law lapsed, intelligence officials continue to be able to put wiretaps on terrorism and espionage suspects under directives that were approved before the expiration of the six-month law, the Protect America Act, which gave the government a freer hand in deciding whom to wiretap without court approval.

Theoretically, intelligence officials would have to revert to older — and, they say, more cumbersome — legal standards if they were now to stumble onto a new terrorist group that was not covered by a previous wiretapping order. But that has not happened since the surveillance law expired, administration officials said.

One lawyer in the telecommunications industry, who spoke on condition of anonymity because wiretapping operations are classified, said he had seen little practical effect on the industry’s surveillance operations since the law expired. Most operations appear to have continued unabated, the lawyer said.

Democrats have been arguing for days that the administration has exaggerated the actual national security harm.

A group of former intelligence officials chimed in Tuesday in a letter to Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence. The administration’s recent comments about wiretapping tools “have distorted rather than enhanced” the debate over the law, said the letter, signed by Rand Beers, Richard A. Clarke, Lt. Gen. Donald L. Kerrick, retired, and Suzanne E. Spaulding, all of whom have served in senior intelligence capacities in recent years.

The expiration of the temporary law “does not put America at greater risk,” the group said, adding that “America’s security cannot be captive to partisan bickering and distortions.”