Thanks
It's my understanding that the administration asked congress (intelligent committee) about getting the Patriot Act revised to allow this kind of wire tapping but was told it would nullify it and have to be debated all over again and the Bush administration didn't want to be without it.
What might be disturbing is if the Bush administration didn't ask for a warrant for Faris once he was deemed a threat to the US.
That we might never know and only learned from the intelligence committee members.