Conservative media figures have defended President Bush's authorization of warrantless domestic surveillance by pointing to a recently released Rasmussen poll showing that 64 percent of Americans believe "the National Security Agency [should] be allowed to intercept telephone conversations between terrorism suspects in other countries and people living in the United States." However, the question they are referring to in the Rasmussen poll misrepresents the issue for which President Bush has been criticized. The poll simply asked whether the National Security Agency (NSA) should be allowed to intercept phone conversations between "terrorism suspects in other countries and people living in the United States." Bush has been sharply criticized on both sides of the aisle for his apparent failure to comply with the requirements of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which calls for the administration to obtain search warrants before or after initiating domestic surveillance in most situations. The key issue, in other words, is not whether surveillance of terrorism suspects should take place at all -- something about which there is presumably little controversy -- but whether Bush violated the law by approving warrantless searches of domestic phone and email communications.
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