Is it true that the Bush administration allowed our phones to be tapped without a court order?

Question

Is it true that the Bush administration allowed our phones to be tapped without a court order?

Answer 1

Only some that were involved in international calls with suspected terrorists. There was a special provision that supports this. Obama has signed on to this to extend this capability.

Answer 2

No that is not true.  

Answer 3

Not exactly.

They were monitoring messaging between terrorists, but eventually found out that some of the messages were going over US based switching infrastructure.

Technically the Bush Administration was illegally eavesdropping. They kept the operation going while they sorted out the legalities to get it all above board, but the Bush Administration refuzed to let National Security take a backseat to the legal technicality.

Many Democrats including the two on the Presidential ticket wanted to hold the companies civily liable to lawsuits, but eventually they capitulated to political pressure by the Bush Administration which wanted a waiver for all these companies, which he stated were correct to put the nation's National Security above all else.

Answer 4

Yes, he has striven extensively to extend the feds wiretapping, trying to eliminate legal safeguards.