You Know You're in Trouble When John Ashcroft Is the Most Liberal Guy in the Room!

"The New York Times reported Sunday that James B. Comey, then deputy attorney general, refused to sign on to the recertification of the [NSA domestic surveillance] program in March 2004. That prompted two of Mr. Bush's most senior aides -- Andrew H. Card Jr., his chief of staff, and Alberto R. Gonzales, then the White House counsel and now the attorney general -- to make an emergency hospital visit to John Ashcroft, then the attorney general, to try to persuade him to give his authorization, as required by White House procedures for the program. Officials with knowledge of the events said that Mr. Ashcroft also appeared reluctant to sign on to the continued use of the program...."

--NYTimes, Jan. 2, 2006

"...Officials also say that the N.S.A., beyond eavesdropping on up to 500 phone numbers and e-mail addresses at any one time, has conducted much larger data-mining operations on vast volumes of communication within the United States to identify possible terror suspects. To accomplish this, the agency has reached agreements with major American telecommunications companies to gain access to some of the country's biggest 'switches' carrying phone and e-mail traffic into and out of the country...."

--Same source as above