NSA Spies at Home?

Is this true? President Bush authorized the NSA to spy on domestic communications as part of his anti-terror effort. The New York Times has a report here: Bush Secretly Lifted Some Limits on Spying in U.S. After 9/11, Officials Say.

I don’t have too much of an issue with snooping around in the anti-terror effort, but the NSA is supposed to focus abroad, not here. If we keep breaking the rules to go after terrorists — all to little effect so far it seems — what exactly are we defending? I thought that those good old American freedoms meant something. Should we really go and give them all up? Where is the constitution when you need it? Where are those constitution literalists that Bush is so fond of packing the Supreme Court with? Just asking.