Bush and his coterie know that their legal arguments for illegal spying are weak and intellectually dishonest, if not ludicrous, so rather than making their case honestly, they avoided dissent by acting in secret, misleading the entire country. Using a tragically familiar modus operandi, Bush has carried out his unlawful spying scheme by acting not as a unitary executive (whatever that is), but as a solitary executive -- as if only the president knows best.

As anyone who took high school civics knows, the government must get a warrant before conducting electronic surveillance on people within the United States.

At no time during this four-year debate about security and civil liberties, has the Bush administration advised Congress in any meaningful way that it was in ongoing violation of FISA; nor has it ever formally sought to amend the law. In other words, the administration has conducted a prolonged charade during which it has pretended to participate in a democratic process of amending and enacting legislation, while secretly violating the law that was under consideration.

When Bush announced famously on April 20, 2004, "There are such things as roving wiretaps. Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way..." He was knowingly lying and intentionally violating the Constitution he swore to uphold. Can you say, high crimes and felonies against the American people?