Burke's Law

The New York Times reports this morning:

Bush Signs Law to Widen Legal Reach for Wiretapping
By JAMES RISEN
Published: August 6, 2007

WASHINGTON, Aug. 5 -- President Bush signed into law on Sunday legislation that broadly expanded the government’s authority to eavesdrop on the international telephone calls and e-mail messages of American citizens without warrants.

Congressional aides and others familiar with the details of the law said that its impact went far beyond the small fixes that administration officials had said were needed to gather information about foreign terrorists. They said seemingly subtle changes in legislative language would sharply alter the legal limits on the government’s ability to monitor millions of phone calls and e-mail messages going in and out of the United States.

They also said that the new law for the first time provided a legal framework for much of the surveillance without warrants that was being conducted in secret by the National Security Agency and outside the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the 1978 law that is supposed to regulate the way the government can listen to the private communications of American citizens.

'This more or less legalizes the N.S.A. program,' said Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies in Washington, who has studied the new legislation...

Edmund Burke famously stated "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

He was wrong. The proper quotation SHOULD read:

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for Democrats to oppose it."

Courage.