Bush authorized domestic spying prior to 911

The nation's second-highest-ranking intelligence official, General Michael V. Hayden made this statement in trying to defend Bush's illegal warrantless eavesdropping program:

"Had this program been in effect prior to 9/11, it is my professional judgment that we would have detected some of the 9/11 al-Qaida operatives in the United States, and we would have identified them as such."

The problem is that he's wrong. Just like he was wrong when he claimed that that the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution doesn't specify that you must have probable cause to be able to do a search that does not violate an American's right against unlawful searches and seizures.

From Truthout.org:

The National Security Agency advised President Bush in early 2001 that it had been eavesdropping on Americans during the course of its work monitoring suspected terrorists and foreigners believed to have ties to terrorist groups, according to a declassified document.

The NSA's vast data-mining activities began shortly after Bush was sworn in as president and the document contradicts his assertion that the 9/11 attacks prompted him to take the unprecedented step of signing a secret executive order authorizing the NSA to monitor a select number of American citizens thought to have ties to terrorist groups.

The declassified report says that the "Director of the National Security Agency is obligated by law to keep Congress fully and currently formed of intelligence activities." But that didn't happen. When news of the NSA's clandestine domestic spying operation, which President Bush said he had authorized in 2002, was uncovered last month by the New York Times, Democratic and Republican members of Congress appeared outraged, claiming that they were never informed of the covert surveillance operation. It's unclear whether the executive order signed by Bush removes the NSA Director from his duty to brief members of Congress about the agency's intelligence gathering programs.

I just don't see how anyone can believe a single word the President or anyone in his administration says.