UPI: BUSH BEGAN WIRETAPS AFTER FISA COURT REJECTED REQUESTS

  UPI - U.S. President George Bush decided to skip seeking warrants 

 for international wiretaps because the court was challenging him at 

 an unprecedented rate. A review of Justice Department reports to 

 Congress by Hearst newspapers shows the 26-year-old Foreign 

 Intelligence Surveillance Court modified more wiretap requests from the Bush

  administration than the four previous presidential administrations 

 combined. The 11-judge court that authorizes FISA wiretaps modified 

 only two search warrant orders out of the 13,102 applications 

 approved over the first 22 years of the court's operation.

  But since 2001, the judges have modified 179 of the 5,645 requests 

 for surveillance by the Bush administration, the report said. A 

 total of 173 of those court-ordered "substantive modifications" 

 took place in 2003 and 2004. And, the judges also rejected or 

 deferred at least six requests for warrants during those two years 

 -- the first outright rejection of a wiretap request in the court's history.

http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20051226-122526-7310r