Illegal Wiretaps

There's a bunch of buzz in the blogosphere about James Comey's testimony before the Senate today. In that testimony, he concluded:

Comey testified as follows:

(i) that he, OLC and the AG concluded that the NSA program was not legally defensible, i.e., that it violated FISA and that the Article II argument OLC had previously approved was not an adequate justification (a conclusion prompted by the New AAG, Jack Goldsmith, having undertaken a systematic review of OLC's previous legal opinions regarding the Commander in Chief's powers);

(ii) that the White House nevertheless continued with the program anyway, despite DOJ's judgment that it was unlawful;

(iii) that Comey, Ashcroft, the head of the FBI (Robert Mueller) and several other DOJ officials therefore threatened to resign;

(iv) that the White House accordingly -- one day later -- asked DOJ to figure out a way the program could be changed to bring it into compliance with the law (presumably on the AUMF authorizaton theory); and

(v) that OLC thereafter did develop proposed amendments to the program over the subsequent two or three weeks, which were eventually implemented.

Yeah. So?

No, seriously. This is all old news. The fact that it's testimony before Senate gives it a bigger megaphone but it's certainly not new news. I agree that it's a serious (and impeachable) offense, but to date no one has shown the balls to do anything about it. Why should they now?

On a related front, PBS has a Frontline tonight on illegal wiretapping. I'm sure it will cover the same territory plus more. And I'm sure it will make the case that the government illegally wiretapped. The question remains. When will someone be held accountable?