A January 10 Wall Street Journal editorial presented as fact misleading and disputed assertions about President Bush's authorization of warrantless domestic surveillance conducted by the National Security Agency (NSA). Claiming that the "process was routinely reviewed by Justice Department lawyers," the editorial failed to note that then-Deputy Attorney General James Comey, who was serving as acting attorney general while then-Attorney General John Ashcroft was in the hospital, objected strenuously to the continuation of the program, prompting White House chief of staff Andrew H. Card Jr. and then-White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales -- the current attorney general -- to visit Ashcroft's hospital room to obtain Department of Justice approval. The editorial also asserted that congressional oversight committees and chief judges on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (established by the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA) also knew about the program: "[T]here were plenty of people in the loop and able to blow the whistle," the Journal wrote, "if there were any real abuses going on." This assertion is disputed in numerous respects.
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