US domestic spying: Senator begs to differ

With all the allegations - and confirmations - of "warrantless" wiretaps and covert surveillence authorised by the Bush Administration to monitor suspects inside the US there are two schools of thought from what I can make out:

1. "Inherent right" argument AKA "Prior authorisation" argument: The President/executive has always had these rights. Which is also linked to the "Neccessity of circumstance" argument: The President/executive had to regardless of whether the right was inherent or not.
2. "Whayoutalkinbout, Willis" argument: No such explicit authorisation exists and no other type of authorisation exists either or else the President would have asked for it specifically. Which is linked to the "free society" argument that "spying" internally must have judicial oversight beforehand (although some have claimed it is should rather than must).

I don't pretend to have researched this matter exstensively, and nor do I wish to step into the entrails of domestic American politics, but I have noted today's Washington Post opinion piece by the former Senate leader, Tom Daschle (Democrat), who states quite clearly his thoughts on point 2:

The White House argues that Congress granted it authority for such surveillance in the 2001 legislation authorizing the use of force against al Qaeda. On Tuesday, Vice President Cheney said the president "was granted authority by the Congress to use all means necessary to take on the terrorists, and that's what we've done.

As Senate majority leader at the time, I helped negotiate that law with the White House counsel's office over two harried days. I can state categorically that the subject of warrantless wiretaps of American citizens never came up. I did not and never would have supported giving authority to the president for such wiretaps. I am also confident that the 98 senators who voted in favor of authorization of force against al Qaeda did not believe that they were also voting for warrantless domestic surveillance.

and is this what smells like the whiff of the smoking gun?...

Literally minutes before the Senate cast its vote, the administration sought to add the words "in the United States and" after "appropriate force" in the agreed-upon text. This last-minute change would have given the president broad authority to exercise expansive powers not just overseas -- where we all understood he wanted authority to act -- but right here in the United States, potentially against American citizens. I could see no justification for Congress to accede to this extraordinary request for additional authority. I refused.

Now what Daschle says does not necessarily mean the warantless/covert activity was illegal per se - but it does make the Bush Administration's arguments more tenuous. I wonder what calibre of penmanship the Attorney-General can muster to provide cover for this one?