Well, it appears that the White House willgive the Senate Intelligence Committee SOME documents from their surveillance program. It appears that the Democrats saying that there would be no retroactive surveillance got Bush and His Evil Minions^™ to back down.

The question is why such a paranoid and secrecy obsessed group of people would cave over the possibility of some telephone companies being in legal jeopardy.

The only conclusion is that Bush and his people are concerned that the telcos will cut a deal, with disclosure of what they did, and who they targeted, and that this would do profound damage to Bush.

Let’s connect the dots:

• Former Qwest CEO Joe Nacchio said that he was asked to participate in this surveillance program on February 27, 2001, almost 7 months before 911.
• The Bush Administration was largely unconcerned about terrorism prior to 911, Condi Rice going as far as saying that the real area of concern would be a resurgent Russia asserting itself on the world stage^*.
• We have the 911 commission report confirming that the political appointees in the Bush Admin were unconcerned with terrorism.
• We have a large number of former Bush administration officials, starting with John Dilulio, who have said that there was no policy apparatus in the whitehouse, just a political one, and that all decisions were made on the basis of political expediency.

So there is no reason for such a program except for a surveillance fetish, and spying on political enemies.

Misusing the state security apparatus for this purpose is an impeachable offence, period, full stop.

^*Nice to know that your work as head of the NSC and as Secretary of State has prevented that. Heck of a job there Condi.