Rochester Democrat & Chronicle: Guest Editorial:

"We are on the brink of a constitutional crisis. President Bush is in trouble over his authorization of domestic spying by the National Security Agency. Meanwhile, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is acting as if the president needs to be protected from the law while his critics should not be protected by the law.

Sounds like 1973, when Richard Nixon was president and John Mitchell attorney general. However, there is a big difference between the 1973 constitutional crisis and the one looming today ? a special prosecutor like Archibald Cox has yet to be appointed.

By authorizing the NSA spying, the president has very likely committed a felony that carries a penalty of five years in a federal prison. However, instead of an independent investigation of the president, Attorney General Gonzales is investigating government whistle blowers who have brought the president's transgressions to light."

"Even though it is entirely possible to prove to judge and jury that President Bush knowingly broke the FISA laws, the record clearly indicates that neither Gonzales, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld nor Condoleezza Rice could ever conceive that a man like President Bush could be wrong. The scales of justice are stacked in favor of the president and we need a special prosecutor to bring them back into balance. We need an impartial investigator who believes more in a government of laws than a government of men."

By Anthony Macula, is an associate professor of mathematics at the State University College at Geneseo. He has been a visiting research scientist at the Air Force Research Laboratory's Information Institute in Rome, Oneida County.