Playing by whose rules?
The president gives on one issue, then another pops up
The Bush administration is having a tough time escaping concerns that it is sometimes going too far in its tactics in the war on terrorism. President Bush has been under fire for weeks after threatening to veto an effort by Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona to clearly prohibit cruel or inhumane treatment of detainees. Last week, he reversed course and agreed to a ban on such actions by U.S. personnel anywhere in the world.
Even before Congress could pass the language, the White House was caught up in new revelations that Bush authorized the National Security Agency to broaden its electronic eavesdropping to include international telephone calls and E-mail of hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of people inside the United States. The New York Times reported that the monitoring was part of an effort to track individuals linked to al Qaeda. But there are major doubts about the legality of such eavesdropping without court orders. Intelligence officials refused to comment.
This story appears in the December 26, 2005 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.