They would be scared if they knew who John Yoo was.

From Wikipedia:

John Yoo contributed to the PATRIOT Act and wrote controversial memos in which he advocated the possible legality of torture and that enemy combatants could be denied protection under the Geneva Conventions.

His positions on executive power, collectively termed the Yoo Doctrine or Unitary executive theory, are controversial since it is suggested the theory holds that the President's war powers place him above any law.

In explaining the Yoo Doctrine, Yoo made the following statements during a December 1, 2005, debate in Chicago, Illinois, with Notre Dame Law School Professor Doug Cassel:

Cassel: If the President deems that he’s got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the person’s child, there is no law that can stop him?

Yoo: No treaty.

Cassel: Also no law by Congress. That is what you wrote in the August 2002 memo.

Yoo: I think it depends on why the President thinks he needs to do that.

On 14th November 2006, invoking the principle of command responsibility, German attorney Wolfgang Kaleck filed a complaint with the German Federal Attorney General (Generalbundesanwalt) against Yoo, along with 13 other "co-defendants" for his alleged complicity in torture and other crimes against humanity at Abu Ghraib in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Yoo

How is this not a major scandal on the level of the greatest presidential corruption and lawbreaking scandals in our country's history? -- GG

It is exactly what you describe, one of the greatest examples of presidential corruption and lawbreaking in our country's history. And it is part of a pattern that that began with the election of this president and that has influenced this administration's every decision.

To this point, the executive branch has not been held accountable for its multiple criminal offenses. A partisan congress and supreme court have aided and abetted this criminality by failing to exercise their own powers under the Constitution. And the main stream media has done almost nothing to inform the public of this and other crimes committed by the executive branch. If not for the oversight of the present congress, none of this would have reached the light of day.

Many questions remain unanswered.

How do you remove a criminal executive branch officer from office without impeachment? How do you hold accountable those persons in government who refuse to meet their responsibilities to hold such criminal behavior accountable? How do you convince the media to meet its responsibility to make this behavior known to the general public? These are the types of questions America's citizens are asking.

Ultimately, it is the public who has the power to hold all of these people accountable and to punish them for any crimes. But America's citizens cannot do their jobs if they not informed.

I don't think it was mentioned in Glenn's original post or in the comments, but the fact that the president may have been directly involved in the NSA scandal is critical to an understanding of the president's potential culpability in these and other criminal acts that have occurred since the 2000 election.

From Think Progress:

COMEY: Mrs. Ashcroft reported that a call had come through, and that as a result of that call Mr. Card and Mr. Gonzales were on their way to the hospital to see Mr. Ashcroft.

SCHUMER: Do you have any idea who that call was from?

COMEY: I have some recollection that the call was from the president himself.

In an earlier comment I posted this:

Not many people are aware that a single company, Amdocs, provides billing, customer relationship management (CRM) and operational support systems (OSS) for the majority of phone companies in America and many of its Internet service providers (ISPs). There is little or no awareness of the existence of Verint, a company that manufacturers and installs much of the wire tapping equipment built into America's phone systems.

As is the case with NARUS, these are also Israel owned and/or Israel based companies. Amdocs has headquarters in St. Louis, Missouri but it is run out of Ra'anana, Israel. In doing the transactional billing for the majority of America's phone companies, Amdocs has access to all call records.

Verint is also an Israeli company. Before it was Verint is was Comverse Infosys. Verint's parent company is Comverse.

This on Comverse from Wikipedia:

Comverse is one of the most notable companies involved in the options backdating scandal. The Ex-CEO of Comverse, Jacob Alexander, an Israeli citizen, has been classified as a wanted fugitive from August 2006 by the American Federal Bureau of Investigation. Along with former finance chief David Kreinberg and former senior general counsel William Sorin, Alexander faces multiple charges of conspiracy, securities fraud, wire fraud, mail fraud, money laundering and making false filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission; all of these charges relate to alleged options backdating or other actions related to stock options.

On September 27, 2006, he was arrested in Namibia after hiding in Windhoek with his family, where he had bought a house at a Country Club. If extradited to the US he could face 25 years in prison if convicted.

Amdocs and Comverse Infosys first came to public attention after 9/11 when they were profiled in a series of Fox News specials hosted by (can you believe it?), Brit Hume.