I am not a lawyer

So I need some information on some things. We've all read the stories about how President Liar McBastard signed an executive order to allow the NSA to spy on Americans without the inconvenience of having to talk to a judge about it at some point. His argument, of course, is that if he didn't do this, the terrorists would be killing puppies and saying "Happy Holidays" to everyone - that it's about national security. Now, from what I've read of the law, there was already a provision on the books for emergency situations where they could start the surveillance and then go talk to a judge, as long as it was within 72 hours.

What I'm wondering from the lawyers is - did Bush break the law here? If so, he just told the country that he did, which would seem like a problem for him.

There is a secondary part to the story, dealing with the traitorous New York Times. No, not traitorous like the head of the KGB, err, President of the United States has suggested - that letting us know that the government may be illegally spying on us is somehow criminal - but traitorous in that they waited a year to publish this. I'm not even talking about that it meant they might have affected the elections in 2004, but that they might have covered up evidence of a crime by this nation's highest elected official for a year. That's it - I wouldn't read an article in that rag if they printed a cover story about how thinkingorsitting was the best blog ever.