Inquiring minds want to know....
Is "circumventing a law" the same thing as "breaking a law"?
How would we know? The White House has successfully (thus far) managed to end-run the courts and Department of Justice on this one, and keep any judicial body from reviewing the program for legality. They just wave their hands and say, "Oh, don't worry, it's legal. We're protecting you, see? Now...shhh...go back to sleep...that's right, sleep..."
If anyone actually read the stories on this so far, they'd find that Qwest asked the NSA to bounce their request off of the FISA court, and the NSA categorically refused, because the FISC might not agree with them. Why on earth would that happen? That court is usually VERY agreeable to such requests.
Then Qwest asked the NSA to get a letter from the Attorney General's office authorizing the data collection. Again, the NSA refused.
Wonder why? I can't imagine the AG of all people would refuse such a request, given his support for the program... Curious. Wonder what they're hiding...?
SW