Wiretapping "Review" Bill a Wolf In Sheep's Clothing

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In the wake of concern by the public over the constitutionality of wiretapping efforts, a small herd of congresscritters, led by Republican senator Arlen Specter, have produced what appears to be a bill requiring judicial review of the wiretapping process. Sound good so far? Until you start reading the bill, and as usual, while it appears to leave one with the impression that the civil liberties of Americans are important and should be protected, actually strips even more rights away from the populace, and seeks to legitimize a means by which Americans can be monitored by the government without permission, review or checks and balances. Good thing our news media is letting people know about this..

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) has cast his agreement with the White House on legislation concerning the National Security Agency's warrantless surveillance as a compromise -- one in which President Bush accepts judicial review of the program. It isn't a compromise, except quite dramatically on the senator's part. Mr. Specter's bill began as a flawed but well-intentioned effort to get the program in front of the courts, but it has been turned into a green light for domestic spying. It must not pass.

The bill would, indeed, get the NSA's program in front of judges, in one of two ways. It would transfer lawsuits challenging the program from courts around the country to the super-secret court system that typically handles wiretap applications in national security cases. It would also permit -- but not require -- the administration to seek approval from this court system, created by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, for entire surveillance programs, thereby allowing judges to assess their legality.

But the cost of this judicial review would be ever so high. The bill's most dangerous language would effectively repeal FISA's current requirement that all domestic national security surveillance take place under its terms. The "compromise" bill would add to FISA: "Nothing in this Act shall be construed to limit the constitutional authority of the President to collect intelligence with respect to foreign powers and agents of foreign powers." It would also, in various places, insert Congress's acknowledgment that the president may have inherent constitutional authority to spy on Americans. Any reasonable court looking at this bill would understand it as withdrawing the nearly three-decade-old legal insistence that FISA is the exclusive legitimate means of spying on Americans. It would therefore legitimize whatever it is the NSA is doing -- and a whole lot more.

-- Honestly, sometimes I wonder if you handed out pairs of scissors to all the members of congress and told them that they needed to cut off their balls "in the interest of national security" how many of them would not actually do it?

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