Agreed. But all monitoring needs a very high degree of oversight. To many forget Filegate.
You hit that dead on. If the President were to take a Mulligan on this I am sure that we would all be happier if he had kept the entire matter as a FISA proceeding. This is one instance where form may be as important as substance. Conservatives could get really ripped if we appear as the agents wanting to repress the rights personal privacy in the interest of a big government. File gate, perhaps, most unfortunate.