No warrant necessary to read this post

Seeing as it's the most wonderful time of the year, I haven't had time to offer much analysis of the recent revelations about the Bush administration's warrantless domestic spying programs.

PoliBlog has been on top of the situation for several days, though. Here's a thoughtful post about warrantless searches of private homes for radiation, and here's another about the general need to prevent any branch from wielding limitless power.

The balance between executive powers and national security needs is often a difficult one to strike, especially in circumstances like the fight against terrorism, which potentially has no endpoint. But to quote the latter PoliBlog post: "[I]f the current rules, procedures, and institutions are inadequate, then let's have the proper debate and then alter them as needed, within the proper constraints of the system."