As long as Democratic politicians can get the shit kicked out of them in elections for being "soft on crime" or "soft on terrorists", there is not going to be any serious civil libertarian constituency in Congress, even if liberal citizens are all for it.

There will always be a few anomalous libertarian-flavored Republicans, but they'll never be a majority, because the force that makes conservative politics electorally viable is not libertarianism (as much as we all might want it to be) it's cultural resentment of liberal values.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was passed in 1978. Prior to that, there were no legal checks on government surveillance. I assume every president was doing it from the moment the equipment was invented.

After everything that's happened in the last 3 years...all the Wall Street flimflammers who wrecked the economy and got away with millions...you still think it's only government offices that are filled with shoddy work and bad incentives?

Sure, but it probably means he shouldn't be writing climatology reports for the EPA.

Now the terrorists know the location of the tiny exhaust pipe that leads all the way to the central core.

TFA says nothing about Obama's actual position on warrantless wiretapping. As far as I can tell from reading the (poorly written) article, it's a bit of procedural legal fluff whose signifance is never explained. Obama may or may not be an asshole, but no evidence has been presented here.