WASHINGTON – Thursday’s court ruling that the Bush administration violated the Constitution by wiretapping – without court order – suspected terrorists’ phone calls isn’t the final word in what promises to be a drawn-out legal battle that could rise to the Supreme Court.

That didn’t prevent Democrats and civil libertarians from rebuking President Bush and boldly claiming victory, even though the practice of wiretapping such calls between the United States and other countries will continue, at least until a decision on whether to set aside the ruling pending appeal.

Meanwhile, Congress is considering legislation to clearly spell out what is and what isn’t legal in such murky cases.

Democrats believe the issue will resonate with voters in the November congressional elections. They hope voters will support Democratic candidates who oppose what they see as Republican attempts to trample on citizens’ rights in the name of national security.

“The administration’s decision to ignore the Constitution and the Congress has come at the expense of the security of the American people,” Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid said in a statement shortly after the ruling.

Polls show voters might be more inclined to vote for Democrats than Republicans, but there’s little in the polling data that suggests wiretaps are the reason.

The economy? Gas prices? Iraq? High health care costs? All have voters worried and concerned. But warrantless wiretaps? It rates hardly a blip on the election radar screen.

In fact, polls show that voters on the whole are quite ho-hum about the issue.

Last January, after the news media trumpeted the revelation that the government was conducting these wiretaps – often using inflammatory terms such as “domestic spying,” “illegal spying” or “citizen spying” – a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll found that a majority of respondents – 59 percent – said the government had not gone too far in restricting citizen liberties to fight terrorism.

And a Pew Poll in February found that 54 percent of Americans thought it was OK for the government to eavesdrop on suspected terrorists without a court order.

That despite some shrill reporting that gave the impression government agents were listening in on phone calls to your mother. It wasn’t so, and most Americans knew that.

But the reporting went on, shrill and negative – which suggests that the people reporting the news are a mite out of touch with the people watching it.

Upon receiving Thursday’s ruling, the White House was quick to punch back:

“Last week, America and the world received a stark reminder that terrorists are still plotting to attack our country and kill innocent people,” press secretary Tony Snow said in a statement. “Today, a federal judge in Michigan has ruled that the Terrorist Surveillance Program ordered by the president to detect and prevent terrorist attacks against the American people is unconstitutional and otherwise illegal. We couldn’t disagree more.”

Continuing, he said, “United States intelligence officials have confirmed that the program has helped stop terrorist attacks and saved American lives. The program is carefully administered, and only targets international phone calls coming into or out of the United States where one of the parties on the call is a suspected al-Qaida or affiliated terrorist. The whole point is to detect and prevent terrorist attacks before they can be carried out.”

Shortly after Snow released his statement, Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy released his own:

“Once again, the Bush administration has been sharply rebuked for making up its own rules this time to carry out warrantless surveillance of Americans. … By acting so cavalierly, the White House created a surveillance program that flunks the requirements of our laws and Constitution and leaves us at risk.”

In the end, the issue will be decided by the courts, the Congress and American voters – as it should be.