Respect the law, Mr. President

REVELATIONS of Bush administration spying on U.S. citizens are shocking enough, but they are particularly alarming as a part of a broader pattern of ignoring or interpreting the law as it sees fit.

President George Bush, and especially Vice President Dick Cheney, argue for expansive executive powers without regard to laws passed by Congress or respect for its oversight role. The failure of the majority Republican Party to assert that responsibility is all the more disturbing. The latest case involves the failure of the administration to secure warrants from a special court prior to using wiretaps and other technical means to monitor communications between U.S. citizens and people abroad or from a foreign county to the U.S.

Subsequently, it was reported those sophisticated electronic devices have also picked up purely domestic communications by accident.

Too often, in too many circumstances, the administration behaves as if the laws of the land do not apply — or it simply chooses to ignore them.

The secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court was created to put secret requests for eavesdropping or searches before a judge. They were routinely approved. Regulations even provided a 72-hour window for the government to act before it explained itself and sought retroactive permission.

One of the judges has resigned to protest Bush's secret, 4-year-old order for warrantless spying that evades the court, The Washington Post reported.

The Bush administration again and again appears to be making it up as it goes along, mining the Justice Department for sympathetic legal interpretations or simply plowing ahead.

Terrorism suspects were defined as enemy combatants to give them an extra-legal veneer so they could be kept out of the U.S. court system, denied fundamental rights, carted off to compliant nations for interrogation or stuck in limbo, ironically, on the island of Cuba.

The U.S. has suffered legal and humanitarian scandals over the use of torture. International agreements and our own domestic laws have been flouted.

After the administration's spying was exposed, the president refused to discuss the matter for security reasons. The next day, he delivered lengthy defenses of the indefensible.

Take away the names, and the policies sound more like Vladimir Putin than Thomas Jefferson. The administration is emboldened to push the limits and create new boundaries because there is no congressional oversight by Republicans.

This is dangerous territory.

Tomorrow: the Padilla case