The Unknown Candidate: Specter: More Wiretap Power to Bush

Thursday, August 31, 2006

Specter: More Wiretap Power to Bush

A bill that expands President Bush's ability to wiretap American phones and conduct other forms of domestic surveillance will likely appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee next Thursday, RAW STORY has learned.

The bill, which was written by judiciary chairman Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA), and which has been widely and publicly excoriated by Democratic members of the committee, contains provisions—such as the institution of program-wide warrants, and warrants that do not expire for a year—that would weaken the strict limits that currently govern the FISA courts.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was written nearly 20 years ago and offers guidelines about the legal use of wiretaps on phones inside the United States. It includes provisions for the use of courts to issue warrants if the government’s case against a suspect meets legal scrutiny.

The judiciary committee originally sought to bring the NSA wiretapping program into compliance with FISA, but in practice, critics claim, Specter’s FISA amendments actually give the president freedom to expand his wiretapping activities.

A statement released by the office of Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) states that Specter’s bill “gives him even more power than he has asserted under his illegal NSA wiretapping program.”

Read more.

Photo credit: Sen. Arlen Specter. (Raw Story)

Also see:

TomPaine.com - Wiretapping Unbound
Aziz Huq writes that the Specter bill is no compromise - it actually locks in the president's authority to act without oversight. "From the Iraq conflict to the handling of captured terrorists, the present administration has demonstrated a remarkable knack for barging in with excessive force in ways that fail to respond to threats. Secrecy is then used to cover up the resulting mess. Boundless license and the renunciation of oversight will only be a recipe for even worse disasters."