With the discovery of secret wiretaps without court order comes the discovery that Bush, again, lied.  From a Bush speech given on April 20, 2004, (from Whitehouse.gov) [UPDATE:  Screw the website — Think Progress has the video of Bush saying this]:

Secondly, there are such things as roving wiretaps. Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires — a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we’re talking about chasing down terrorists, we’re talking about getting a court order before we do so. It’s important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution.

Bush ordered the now-controversial wiretaps within weeks after 9/11.  So he was clearly lying when he spoke these words.

UPDATE: Shakespeare’s Sister searches the White House website for the words "wire tap", and finds more admissions from the White House that a court order is required.

Of special note is this "Ask The White House" page at the White House website, a Q&A with U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.  At one point, McNulty writes:

The framers of the Constitution established the ground rules for law enforcement more than 200 years ago and the USA PATRIOT Act must and does abide by those rules. For example, the actions you mention can only happen if a federal judge is satisfied that the government has met the appropriate standard. For searches and seizures, the standard is probable cause to believe that the place to be searched has evidence of, for example, a terrorist plot. The lesson from the horrors of 9-11 should be clear. We must do all we can within the Constitution to prevent the death of Americans at the hands of terrorists.

The emphasis (underline) is his, not mine.

Later on, hre writes:

Since its enactment in 2001, there have been zero verified civil liberties violations regarding the use of the PATRIOT Act.

The PATRIOT Act was crafted with built-in civil liberties safeguards, such as judicial review and Congressional oversight, to preserve Americans’ civil liberties while giving law enforcement the much-needed tools to address the terrorist threat

In addition, the PATRIOT Act updates the law to account for 21st Century technology. Terrorists are smart enough to use the most advanced technological devices. By maintaining judicial checks and balances, the PATRIOT Act enables investigators to keep up with the way terrorists communicate in the 21st Century.

Emphasis mine.  And still later:

The USA PATRIOT Act authorizes the monitoring of communications only with the approval of a federal judge. The approval is periodically reviewed by the judge, and a report of all approvals is made to Congress. FBI agents can’t just monitor your phone calls and e-mail messages because they think it might be interesting. I agree with you that the tools provided by the USA Act do work and are critical to our efforts to identify terrorists and prevent terrorism in this country.

Emphasis mine again.

I wonder what Paul is thinking today.