None of them raised public objections to this obvious threat to Americans' civil liberties under the Fourth Amendment.

Now, Senate Republicans have cut a deal with the White House. In exchange for avoiding a full Senate inquiry into the eavesdropping, the White House has agreed to inform two seven-member "terrorist surveillance subcommittees" of Congress about the details of how the program works.

We don't see that this is much of an improvement. Before, there were eight members of Congress in the loop. Now there will be 14.

True, the so-called "Gang of Eight" didn't get the details about what the nation's electronic spies at the National Security Agency were doing. Supposedly, the new subcommittees will. They also can bring members of their staff into the process.

In addition, the Bush administration reportedly has agreed to seek warrants from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court whenever possible.

Apparently, however, the NSA could conduct surveillance for 45 days without a warrant of any kind. If it decided to go beyond that period, the attorney general would have to certify that the warrantless snooping was necessary to protect the country and explain to the subcommittees why a warrant has not been sought. The attorney general would have to update this information every 45 days.

This is not reassuring. Remember, this would be the same same attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, who argues that Article II of the Constitution, which makes the president commander in chief of the armed forces, combined with the congressional resolution to fight the war on terror, is all the authority President Bush needed to launch warrantless eavesdropping on people in the United States.

We don't buy that insupportable argument, and we don't believe any American who treasures civil liberties and the separation of powers should, either.

Besides, the Constitution requires that warrants be obtained from the courts. We do not see how informing congressional committees that the NSA is violating the Fourth Amendment solves anything or holds the executive branch to the letter of the Constitution.

It is the courts, not Congress, that decide probable cause and whether the law has been broken.

That's in the Constitution, too.