Forever War

United States President George W. Bush issued an executive order authorizing the National Security Agency (NSA) as of 2002 to conduct warrantless domestic phone-taps of persons believed to be linked to al-Qaeda or its affiliates. The NSA subsequently performed wiretaps on international communications that included a U.S. participant. The authorization was kept secret until December 2005, when it was reported in the The New York Times, engendering serious controversy over both the legality of the blended international/domestic wiretaps and the revelation of this highly-classified program, especially in a time of war.

The controversial wiretaps arguably constitute a violation of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution which makes search and seizure without a warrant illegal, and may also be a criminal violation of the wiretapping provisions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) or Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control Act.

President Bush has maintained he acted within "legal authority derived from the constitution" and that Congress "granted [him] additional authority to use military force against al Qaeda". Allegedly, the necessary statutory authority to override FISA's warrant provisions is provided by the authorization to use "all necessary force" in the employment of military resources to protect the security of the United States; the use of wiretapping is a qualifying use of force (under the terms of the authorization for the use of military force against al-Qaida as found in Senate Joint Resolution 23, 2001).