The Bush administration prepares to shoot more messengers

When a person gets caught doing something illegal or immoral, often he will react bitterly and attempt to shift blame.

True to Bush administration tradition, Gonzales's Justice Department is now seeking to prosecute (or perhaps I should say "persecute") those responsible for leaking the news about Bush's policy of spying on you and me without court approval.

Um, shouldn't the Justice Department be investigating Bush's actions, not the actions of the whistleblowers?

The White House is saying that the Justice Department launched this investigation on its own, without prompting from the White House. But hasn't Attorney General Gonzales pretty much devoted his life to being a loyal servant of George W?

From the Associated Press via truthout:
-----
The Justice Department has opened an investigation into the leak of classified information about President Bush's secret domestic spying program, Justice officials said Friday.

The officials, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the probe, said the inquiry will focus on disclosures to The New York Times about warrantless surveillance conducted by the National Security Agency since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The Times revealed the existence of the program two weeks ago in a front-page story that acknowledged the news had been withheld from publication for a year, partly at the request of the administration and partly because the newspaper wanted more time to confirm various aspects of the program.

The story unleashed a firestorm of criticism of the administration. Some critics accused the president of breaking the law by authorizing intercepts of conversations - without prior court approval or oversight - of people inside the United States and abroad who had suspected ties to al-Qaida or its affiliates.

The surveillance program, which Bush acknowledged authorizing, bypassed a nearly 30-year-old secret court established to oversee highly sensitive investigations involving espionage and terrorism.

Administration officials insisted that Bush has the power to conduct the warrantless surveillance under the Constitution's war powers provision. They also argued that Congress gave Bush the power to conduct such a secret program when it authorized the use of military force against terrorism in a resolution adopted within days of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The Justice Department's investigation was being initiated after the agency received a request for the probe from the NSA.

The administration's legal interpretation of the president's powers allowed the government to avoid requirements under the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

The act established procedures that an 11-member court used in 2004 to oversee nearly 1,800 government applications for secret surveillance or searches of foreigners and U.S. citizens suspected of terrorism or espionage.

Congressional leaders have said they were not briefed four years ago, when the secret program began, as thoroughly as the administration has since contended.
-----
[Read more.]