Arlen Spector admits violation

[pbslmo]

Sen. Arlen Specter (news, bio, voting record), whose committee has scheduled hearings Monday on the National Security Agency program, said he believes the administration violated a 1978 law specifically calling for a secretive court to consider and approve such monitoring.

Specter, R-Pa., said he might consider subpoenas for administration documents that would detail its legal justification for the program.

"The president could've taken this there and lay it on the line," Specter said, citing the special court set up under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978.

"That court has an outstanding record of not leaking. They would be pre-eminently well-qualified to evaluate this program and say it's OK or not OK," Specter told NBC's "Meet the Press."

Under the NSA program put in place after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the government has eavesdropped, without seeking warrants, on international phone calls and e-mails of people within the United States who are deemed to be a terrorism risk.

The administration has defended Bush's decision to bypass the FISA law, saying it is too cumbersome to deal with in a post-Sept. 11 world of heightened security threats. It also said Bush had authority as commander in chief and under a 2001 congressional resolution authorizing force in the fight against terrorism.

"The president's authority to take military action — including the use of communications intelligence targeted at the enemy — does not come merely from his constitutional powers. It comes directly from Congress as well," in that post-Sept. 11 resolution, according to Gonzales' prepared testimony for the hearing. The Associated Press on Saturday obtained a copy of his scheduled remarks.

Specter was skeptical.

"I think that contention is very strained and unrealistic. The authorization for use of force never mentions electronic surveillance," Specter said.

In response to written questions submitted to him by Specter before the hearing, Gonzales gives an explanation why the administration bypassed the FISA court: "The delay inherent in the FISA process is incompatible with the narrow purpose of this early warning system."

Specter, however, said that response "was not entirely responsive. ... His answer wasn't really clear." The senator said there is no reason why the administration could not have consulted with the spy court or Congress, who could have changed the law if it was too cumbersome.

But Gen. Michael Hayden, the No. 2 intelligence official in the government, said the FISA process "doesn't give us the speed and agility to do what this program is designed to do."

The program's intent is to "detect and prevent attacks. This is not about long-term surveillance to gather reams of intelligence against a stable and a fixed target," Hayden said on "Fox News Sunday."

Specter's committee has asked the administration to Justice Department documents detailing the legal justification for the NSA program.

Asked about the possibility the committee might subpoena the administration for the material, Specter said he first wanted to hear from Gonzales.

"If we come to it and need it, I'll be open about it," Specter said. He added, "If the necessity arises, I won't be timid."

 

[fossten]

Reprinted from NewsMax.com

Sunday, Feb. 5, 2006 2:27 p.m. EST

Arlen Specter: FISA Law May be Unconstitutional

Sen. Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter said Sunday that while President Bush's terrorist surveillance program is a "flat out violation" of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), it may be entirely legal because of powers granted the president by the Constitution.

"There is an involved question here . . . as to whether the president's powers under Article 2, his inherent powers, supersede a statute." Specter told NBC's "Meet the Press."

The Pennsylvania Republican said that if the FISA statute "is inconsistent with the Constitution, the Constitution governs and the constitutional powers predominate."

Specter, whose committee is set to commence hearings Monday into the surveillance program, said that when the FISA law was signed by President Carter, he voluntarily surrendered his power to conduct independent domestic surveillance without a warrant.

"But that’s not the end of the discussion," the top Republican cautioned, promising that his hearings would explore the issue of presidential prerogatives and FISA's constitutionality - or lack thereof.

Specter said he may call Carter as a witness to explain his thinking on the FISA law.

"I’ve been discussing that, and it’s on the agenda for consideration," he explained.

 

[fossten]

February 7, 2006

Point of No Return

By Thomas Sowell

Looking back at the history of tragic times often reveals that many -- or most -- of the people of those times were often preoccupied with things that look trivial, or even pathetic, in view of the catastrophe looming over them. Will later generations looking back at our times see a similar blindness, and even frivolousness, in the face of mortal dangers?

Terrorists and terrorist governments are giving us almost daily evidence of their fanatical hatred and violent sadism, as the clock ticks away toward their gaining possession of nuclear weapons. They not only hold a harmless young woman hostage in Iraq, they parade her in tears on television, just as they have paraded not only the terrorizing, but even the beheading, of others on television.

Moreover, there is a large and gleeful audience in the Arab world for these gross brutalities, just as there was glee and cheering among the Palestinians when the televised destruction of the World Trade center was broadcast in the Middle East.

Yet what are we preoccupied with or outraged about? Whether the American government should intercept the phone calls of these cutthroats to people in the United States.

That question has been sanitized in the mainstream media by asking whether the government should be engaged in "domestic wiretapping," just as the terrorists themselves have been sanitized into "militants" or "insurgents."

The way the question is posed by many in the media and in politics, you would think our intelligence agencies were listening in on you talking on the phone to your aunt Mabel.

Be serious! There are more than a quarter of a billion people in the United States. Intelligence agencies have neither the manpower, the time, the money, nor the interest to listen in on you and your aunt Mabel.

Lawyers may differ on fine legal points about the Constitutional powers of the commander in chief during wartime versus the oversight powers of the courts. But, a Supreme Court Justice once pointed out that the Constitution of the United States is not a suicide pact.

The Constitution was meant for us to live under, not be paralyzed by, in the face of death.

When some honcho in the international terrorist network is captured in Afghanistan or Iraq, and the phone numbers in his computer are found by his American captors, it is only a matter of time before his capture becomes news broadcast around the world.

In the hour or two before that happens, his contacts within the United States may continue to use the phones they have been using. Listening in on their conversations during that brief window of opportunity can provide valuable information on enemies within our midst who are dedicated to our destruction.

Precious time can be wasted filing legalistic documents to get some judge's permission to tap the domestic terrorists' phones before CBS or CNN broadcasts the news of the captured terrorist leader overseas and the domestic terrorists stop using the phones that they had used before to talk with him.

With Iran advancing step by step toward nuclear weapons, while the Europeans wring their hands and the United Nations engages in leisurely discussion, this squeamishness about tapping terrorists' phone contacts in the United States is grotesque.

Has anyone been paying attention to the audacity of the terrorists? Some in the media seem mildly amused that Palestinian terrorists are threatening Denmark because of editorial cartoons that they found offensive.

Back in the 1930s, some people were amused by Hitler, whose ideas were indeed ridiculous, but by no means funny.

This was not the first threat against a Western country for exercising their freedom in a way that the Islamic fanatics did not like. Osama bin Laden threatened the United States on the eve of our 2004 elections, if we didn't vote the way he wanted.

When he has nuclear weapons, such threats cannot be ignored, when the choice is between knuckling under or seeing American cities blasted off the face of the earth.

That is the point of no return -- and we are drifting towards it, chattering away about legalisms and politics.