Digging themselves deeper

BushCo keeps trying to justify their illegal wiretapping and each day the explanations get more and more absurd. The justifications for their actions change and expand from day to day.

In a press conference on january 23, General Michael V. Hayden, former head of the National Security Agency, serving at the time that the Bush administration started its illegal wiretapping, appears to be ignorant of the Constitution's requirement that searches need to be based on "probable cause". From Daily Kos :

GEN. HAYDEN . . . Just to be very clear -- and believe me, if there's any amendment to the Constitution that employees of the National Security Agency are familiar with, it's the Fourth. And it is a reasonableness standard in the Fourth Amendment. And so what you've raised to me -- and I'm not a lawyer, and don't want to become one -- what you've raised to me is, in terms of quoting the Fourth Amendment, is an issue of the Constitution. The constitutional standard is "reasonable." And we believe -- I am convinced that we are lawful because what it is we're doing is reasonable."

And the text of the Fourth Amendment:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

In another revelation posted at a valuable new blog, Unclaimed Territory - by Glenn Greenwald, Greenwald explains:

... the Administration had already been engaging in eavesdropping outside of the parameters of FISA, and yet the DoJ itself was expressing serious doubts about the constitutionality of that eavesdropping and even warned that engaging in it might harm national security because it would jeopardize prosecutions against terrorists. Put another way, the DoJ was concerned that it might be unconstitutional to eavesdrop with a lower standard than probable cause even as the Administration was doing exactly that.

BushCo is justifying their actions in any way they can, even if they contratdict each other. In a "reality-based" world this should lead to their being called to account, but what are the chances of that ?