Is it too much to ask the President to follow the law? Here's what we learned in school. There are three branches of government in the American political system. The executive branch is the President, the legislative branch is the Congress and the judicial branch is the courts. The President enforces the laws, and that's why all the agencies, like the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Education, are part of the executive branch. Congress makes the laws, and the President ensures that the laws are faithfully executed, or carried out.

This may seem a simple review of high school social studies, but no one has explained this to George W. Bush and the lawyers who tell him what to do. We now have confirmation of this from a court ruling yesterday from a Federal judge who ruled that the 5 year old electronic eavesdropping program which the New York Times exposed last year is illegal because the President has authorized warrentless searches in violation of a Congressional statute.

Here is some background. In 1978, Congress passed a law which required the President to get permission from a special court (which meets in secret) to listen to phone calls. This was called the FISA law, short for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. As the court pointed out yesterday, Congress did this because it found through an investigation that "every President since 1946 had engaged in warrantless wiretaps in the name of national security, and that there had been numerous political abuses."

The FISA law grants the President significant leeway to eavesdrop. The FISA Court -- set up in connection with the 1978 law -- almost always grants these requests to tap phones. The President can even ask the FISA Court for permission to do this after the tapping has begun. So they can tap the phones on Monday and request permission on Tuesday. This allows the President to wiretap in emergency situations. From time to time, the President has get more authorization to renew the wiretaps. So the FISA law protects privacy by making sure that judges review the wiretap application and it also allows the President some leeway to investigate illegal behavior and to keep track of foreign threats.

What did the Bush administration do? After 9/11 the Bush administration began eavesdropping on phone calls between Americans and foreigners based on suspicion of terrorism. We know how the terror threat justifies whatever this or any other President wants to do. So the administration did not bother going to the FISA Court for authorization to eavesdrop and it did not bother to comply with any of the requirements of the FISA law. What does this mean? The President did not take care to ensure that the laws were being faithfully executed, and he did not properly enforce laws passed by Congress. The President made up his own procedures without Congressional approval and did what he wanted.

Yesterday, a Federal judge in Michigan ruled that Bush broke the law in proceeding this way. The President violated FISA and the Constitution which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures and contains a requirement that warrants be obtained prior to a search.

I have no doubt that a terror threat exists and that eavesdropping on certain phone calls will stop certain acts of terror from happening. But this country operates under the rule of law. Richard Nixon resigned the presidency in 1974 because it was clear that he broke the law. Bill Clinton was impeached in 1998 because he lied under oath. Ronald Reagan's presidency was almost derailed because he ignored a law that prohibited U.S. assistance to the contra army in Nicaragua. Now Bush has been shown to have violated the law.

If Bush wanted to eavesdrop, his people should have gone to the FISA Court to get the warrants. In this day and age of computer technology, they could have cut and pasted their warrant applications and given them to a FISA Court that almost always grants these applications. In fact, does anyone doubt that the FISA Court would have given Bush carte blanch in the wake of September 11? But Bush and his lawyers did not do this because they could not be bothered, which is consistent with the administration's arrogance. And if Bush needed to eavesdrop in a way that the FISA Court would not allow, he could have asked Congress to change the law to make it easier. There is no doubt that the Republican majorities in Congress would have given Bush whatever he wanted in this regard and changed the FISA law.

So Bush got caught. He did this all in secret and the New York Times found out and published the story on the front page and a Federal judge said this procedure was illegal. Thank the Lord for a free press and thank the Lord for an independent judiciary. This Court ruling should be given to George W. Bush, and he should be forced to read it. Then he should give the country a nationally-televised book report on what the court ruling has taught him.