Why Bush Decided to Blow Off the FISA Court

Under existing law, the Government could wiretap FIRST and obtain court permission LATER (within 72 hours after the wiretap). So why did Bush decide to break the law and violate his oath to defend the US Constitution?

I believe I have found the answer on the NYTimes Forum.

Direct quote:

The other reason I think they decided to pursue NSA eavesdropping without warrants is that it turns out they were having trouble with the FISA court.

The factlet that has been thrown around is that the FISA court had only turned down a small number of requests (4 I believe) in its entire history. However, you probably saw the story that revealed that many FISA warrant requests from the Bush administration were edited, essentially rewritten by the court.

I interpret this to mean that the Bush administration requests were sloppy or overly broad or perhaps both.

I think they got tired of following correct procedures and so, believing as you say, that they could never get caught, they just decided to blow off the FISA court entirely.