Just days before George Bush leaves office, the FISA court issued a major ruling. Now remember, FISA stands for Foreign Intelligence Secrecy Act. It is a secret court that expedites warrants for our intelligence agencies to help fight the war on terror. In a really rare public opinion from the court, it validated the "power of the president and Congress to wiretap international phone calls and intercept e-mail messages without a specific court order, even when Americans' private communications may be involved." Here's the story from The New York Times.

This marks the first time that an appellate court addressed the constitutionality of the wiretapping powers of the federal government. With this ruling, "it may offer legal credence to the Bush administration's repeated assertions that the president has the power to act without specific court approval in ordering national security eavesdropping that may involve Americans."

As a senator, Obama was very much against Bush's presidential wiretapping power. But then he voted for the bill anyway that gave Bush the power to do so. Now that Obama is entering the Oval Office, maybe he will appreciate a ruling like this .. knowing the challenges that face him.

Apologies from those who slammed Bush on this issue? Yeah, right. Are you kidding me?

By the way ... note that the critics always used the term "domestic wiretapping" when referring to these wiretaps even though either the caller or the person receiving the call was always in another country. Only in the mind of a liberal is that "domestic wiretapping."