This is a story that is unfolding bizarrely, and very quickly. Why just since I sat down at my computer a couple of hours ago, I have learned that:

1. The Defense Dept has a J Edgar type spy program going on too.

2. The NSA was spying domestically immediately after 9/11, and prior to the executive order authorizing it by Bush in early 2002.

3. The NY Times, after meeting with White House officials to discuss the national security aspects of the report, has been sitting on this story for a year.

4. One of the reporters who co-wrote the NY Times article has a book on the subject due out in January (the Woodstain syndrome of holding back information the public needs to know, in order to keep it for your book).

5. Bush's White House counsel (Harriet Dearest?) is apparently as stupid as he is, for advising him to publicly admit in his weekly radio address this morning that he actually authorized the surveillence. No wonder he wanted his White House counsel on the Supreme Court. Harriet might have had a hand in protecting him, as this case is surely on it's way there.

6. That both judges who run the national security spy court (officially known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court, is housed in the Justice Dept, and the court that reviews all requests for domestic spying) balked at the Bush administration claims that it's warrantless searches, with one of them actually shutting the program for a time until she received assurances that the NSA would never bring a case before her which used evidence of probable cause discovered as a result of the warrantless surveillance.

And that was just in a couple of hours time. This breaking scandal is breathtaking in scope.