"They couldn't dream one up."

The Carpetbagger helps mine the money quote out of a Washington Post story on the reaction of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) and , more critically, the reason the Bush Administration went around the court to spy on Americans.

"Bush administration officials believe it is not possible, in a large-scale eavesdropping effort, to provide the kind of evidence the court requires to approve a warrant. Sources knowledgeable about the program said there is no way to secure a FISA warrant when the goal is to listen in on a vast array of communications in the hopes of finding something that sounds suspicious. Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales said the White House had tried but failed to find a way.

One government official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the administration complained bitterly that the FISA process demanded too much: to name a target and give a reason to spy on it.

"For FISA, they had to put down a written justification for the wiretap," said the official. "They couldn't dream one up."

I think it is reasonable to assume that in the days immediately after 911, the government had a responsibility to look everywhere for additional threats. But, once it became obvious that the terrorists we were fighting were a small band of extremist hiding out in Afghani caves, you would think that at that point the Bush Administration might go to work on rooting out the terrorists where they were instead of spying on Americans.

Can we really believe now that with all of this sophisticated spy technology at their disposal, the Bush Administration actually believed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction?

The rule of law subverted. Impeachment may be the only way to save our country from these extremists hiding out in Washington.