GOOD THING WE GOT RID OF DICK CHENEY AND HIS PARANOID NATIONAL-SECURITY STATE: Obama administration had restrictions on NSA reversed in 2011.

UPDATE: A reader notes this passage, which does deserve breaking out:

What had not been previously acknowledged is that the court in 2008 imposed an explicit ban — at the government’s request — on those kinds of searches, that officials in 2011 got the court to lift the bar and that the search authority has been used.

So to be clear, the Obama Administration removed a ban on spying placed there at the Bush Administration’s urging. And, it’s worth noting, did it the year before the elections.