Dubya says he authorized the spying order, and is mucho pisso-d at those who spilled the beans to the New York Times.

An excerpt from the CTV.ca story:

Appearing angry at times, Bush said Saturday that media reports of the highly classified program have tipped off enemies of the United States.

"As a result our enemies have learned information they should not have, and the unauthorized disclosure of this effort damages our national security and puts our citizens at risk," he said.

In a statement released earlier, Bill Keller, the Times' executive editor, said the newspaper postponed publishing the article for a year while it considered the impact of such information on national security issues.

However, the Times decided to go ahead with the report after determining it could be written without jeopardizing intelligence operations. Keller also emphasized that information about many NSA eavesdropping operations is public record.

For all of Bush's bluster, I don't think this story compromised U.S. national security. Think about it: The National Security Agency in the U.S. monitors electronic conversations, landline telephones included. If you're really a high-level terrorist, aren't you going to assume that any electronic conversation you have is monitored?

Al Qaeda has resorted to sneakerware in some cases for delivering highly confidential messages.

While some right-wing bloggers in the U.S. have referred to "civil liberties chicken littles," I guess what they're really arguing is to fight terrorism, you must become a police state.