The Times:

Deep into an updated Army manual, the deletion of 10 words has left some national security experts wondering whether government lawyers are again asserting the executive branch’s right to wiretap Americans without a court warrant.

“Wondering”?!? I’m not wondering. Are you? And while we’re at it:

“Still asserting”? The criminal Bush regime never stopped asserting! Even when a Federal judge called Bullshit on over thirty Bush felonies under FISA.

The original guidelines, from 1984, said the Army could seek to wiretap people inside the United States on an emergency basis by going to the secret court set up by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA, or by obtaining certification from the attorney general “issued under the authority of section 102(a) of the Act.”

That last phrase is missing from the latest manual, which says simply that the Army can seek emergency wiretapping authority pursuant to an order issued by the FISA court “or upon attorney general authorization.” It makes no mention of the attorney general doing so under FISA.

It never stops, does it? Oh, and it’s been going on for two years:

The Army guidelines were finalized in November 2005, and Mr. Aftergood’s group recently obtained a copy under the Freedom of Information Act.

So, The God(s) of Your Choice, If Any, only know(s) what they’ve vaccumed up by this point…
The fish rots from the head, doesn’t it?

NOTE To any staffer reading this: Again I say that the whistleblower you want is a systems administrator, as with Samuel Provance at Abu Ghraib. Because whatever the Army’s collecting will be bad enough, but we want to know not only what the data is, but where it goes. Say, straight to the West Wing.