Bush Admin debunking itself

And the Corporate Media ignores it - From Media Matters:

On January 26, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and Knight Ridder reported that a 2002 Department of Justice (DOJ) statement, in which the department explained its refusal to support a bill proposed by Sen. Mike DeWine (R-OH) to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) appears to undermine several of the Bush administration's key arguments for bypassing FISA to conduct warrantless domestic surveillance.

According to the Post's report, DOJ now seeks to defend its refusal to support the DeWine bill by drawing a distinction between that legislation, which it claims would have lowered the standard for conducting surveillance, and the National Security Agency's (NSA) warrantless surveillance, which DOJ claims complies with the stricter standard. But while the Post report cited one remark by Gen. Michael V. Hayden that contradicted DOJ's distinction, though without explicitly noting that contradiction, other media have yet to report that this latest defense of the administration's domestic spy program contradicts recent statements by Hayden, White House spokesman Scott McClellan, and President Bush himself -- each of whom has defended the program in the last week.

Hayden remark contradicts DOJ suggestion that "probable cause" and "reasonable basis" are "essentially the same"

According to the Post, DOJ spokeswoman Tasia Scolinos explained the administration did not support DeWine's bill because it would have lowered the standard for obtaining warrants to "reasonable suspicion." By contrast, Scolinos said, the operative standard for NSA surveillance is "reasonable basis," which she said was "essentially the same" standard as FISA's requirement for "probable cause."

Scolinos's assertion directly contradicts a statement made by Hayden earlier in the week. In a January 23 press conference, Hayden, the former head of the NSA who was the first official put forth by the administration to defend the program, acknowledged that the "reasonable basis" standard employed by the NSA is "a bit softer than it is for a FISA warrant." Hayden then directly acknowledged that the warrantless domestic surveillance had adopted a "lower standard" than required under FISA in response to a question from a reporter. The reports by the Post and the Los Angeles Times noted Hayden's "a bit softer" remark, but the Times did not report the DOJ defense.

Bush, McClellan comments blur distinction between "reasonable basis" and "reasonable suspicion"

Moreover, any distinction between the "reasonable basis" standard of the Bush administration's domestic spy program and the "reasonable suspicion" standard of the DeWine amendment was already blurred by Bush and McClellan, who each adopted a near-identical formulation to the "reasonable suspicion" standard while describing the administration's warrantless surveillance program. In a January 23 speech, Bush said: "What I'm talking about is the intercept of certain communications emanating between somebody inside the United States and outside the United States; and one of the [phone] numbers would be reasonably suspected to be an Al Qaeda link or affiliate" [emphasis added]. In a press briefing the next day, McClellan similarly said that the program "is focused only on communications in which one person is reasonably suspected of links to al Qaeda or affiliated terrorist organizations" [emphasis added].

Will the media report the administration's latest contradictions in defending program's legality?

Now that they have reported on the 2002 DOJ statement, will the Post, the Los Angeles Times, and Knight Ridder -- as well as other media who have not yet reported on the topic -- explore the veracity of the administration's response?

Vyan