Am I Missing Something Here?

I keep hearing that the leaking of the "spying on Americans scandal" was a treasonous or near-treasonous act that endangers national security.

My question is, how?

Were any details about whom, specifically, we were investigating released? Did anyone who used telephones or emails to call their terrorist associates not think that there was a good chance that their calls would be monitored?

The leak, as I understood it, was not about the fact that the U.S. government was spying on U.S. citizens. It was that the administration did not go through the proper procedures to get the judicial imprimatur on their spying. Moreover, on the radio I heard that such warrants could have been issues retroactively up to 72 hours. This means that the question "if bin Laden calls someone in the U.S., should our intelligence people who are spying on him have to hang up?" (I think Hannity was the one who said this) moot. They don't need to, they just need to get a warrant within 72 hours in order to use the information.

In other words, none of the information that was released, as far as I know, ought to have endangered any spying operation, because from the standpoint of anyone for whom it would be justified for us to spy on, they would likely suspect that we were spying on them anyway. The only extra information they would have now is that such spying might be occurring without judicial review.

Which means, of course, that Bush isn't angry that people have compromised our intelligence gathering. No, he is upset that people have exposed the fact that he is playing fast and loose with the law.

And before a frothing mouth Bush-olater attacks me, let me say that, Hell, yes, I know that Clinton did this stuff, too. Lying under oath about being inflated by Monica is probably the least of the impeachable offenses he committed. I don't deny that other presidents have been bad, nor do I think that Bush is necessarily worse than most of the rest of them. I just think that he is as bad as most, and am sick of hearing the neocons and the Bush-olaters fete him as the best thing since Ronnie.

That is all.