More reasons why warrantless wiretapping is a bad idea

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Alito is all for the President having ultimate power in the fight against terrorism. Many Americans agree. Apparently, they are fearful enough of terrorism that they would (if given the choice) sacrifice a little bit of freedom to get a lot of security.

Ben Franklin had a retort for that: "They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security."

But that was over 200 years ago. And who remembers Ben Franklin anyway?

In light of that, Georgia10 has some more up-to-date and real-world reasons why warrantless wiretapping is a bad idea:

• First and foremost, any terror conviction can now be challenged under a "fruit of the poisonous tree" doctrine. Bush acting outside the law has actually made it easier for those charged with terrorism to suppress evidence against them.

• Second, the program is a distraction which wastes critical manpower. FBI agents who are supposed to be chasing down terrorists are, because of this far-reaching scope of this program, investigating ordinary Americans. Under Bush's program, thousands of FBI officers are chasing calls to Pizza Hut rather than chasing sleeper cells who may be planning to attack us.

• Finally--and this is the point the Democrats need to hit, hard--Bush's spying program has not resulted in a single terror lead in the four years it has been implemented. Not one single lead.

Alito is OK with the President grabbing too much power in this regard; it's the main reason I feel he should be kept off the court. But if people are going to be swung our way, we should at least talk about the concrete way the program fails.