Greetings. In April 2004, President Bush made a seemingly direct and unequivocal statement regarding U.S. wiretapping policies in the fight against terrorism. We now know that he spoke these words after authorizing the NSA warrantless wiretapping program.

You can watch this very short video of his comments (Windows Media) for yourself.

The White House explanation for this seemingly gaping discrepancy is that the President was supposedly (we're now told) only talking about "ordinary" secret wiretaps under the PATRIOT Act, not about what we might call "Double Secret" NSA wiretaps (legal or not).

Newspeak is alive and well. Dean Wormer of Animal House fame would be proud.

--Lauren--