President Bush hid behind the free elections in Iraq this week when a news report revealed that in 2002, he authorized a "Big Brother"-type spy operation that infringed on the freedoms of hundreds, if not thousands, of Americans here in the United States.

As great as the Iraq elections were, it didn't leave Bush much of a fig leaf. Signing a secret order to allow the government to spy on Americans doesn't cut it in the land of the free.

Members of the administration's National Security Agency told The New York Times that Bush approved the plan to eavesdrop on ordinary citizens' phone calls and e-mails in the days after 9/11.

The Times' sources were concerned about the program's legality. The president had bypassed court approval of the surveillance program, allowing for warrantless searches. But it was a shortcut that short-circuited the Constitution.

The White House will neither confirm nor deny the Times story. But Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., called the program "Big Brother run amok."

The Times' revelation did spur the Senate yesterday to reject an extension of the Patriot Act that also showed inadequate protections against similar breaches of civil liberties.

Now the president must come forward. Misdirecting attention to the free elections in Iraq isn't good enough, nor is hiding behind some vague sense of national security.

Bush needs to come clean.