Fun with words. First, there was the "war on terror" that was "a different war" - that is, without a defined ennemy, time or space. Now there is the domestic spying program that is a "terrorist surveillance program", and its logic that domestic laws cease to apply once anyone on the US terroritory is engaged in communications with an overseas party.
None of this explains why retroactive warrants can not be obtained, as the Foreign intelligence surveillance act allows for, within 72 hours of the deemed "urgent need" to spy on specific conversations or data exchanges. Or why, if this is not practicable, a change in the law was not offered.
There is just one word that never changes, in the administration's vocabulary: 9/11. The attacks could have been prevented, the White House even suggested, had the warrantless eavesdropping been authorized. Except for the fact, of course, that the U.S. services had failed to sort out and interpret the massive information already at their disposal.