A Briefing and a Trip to the FISA Court
09 February 2006 9:41 am by Taylor Marsh
A Briefing and a Trip to the FISA Court
… “It's a good start, and it was very useful,”
said Representative Jane Harman of California, the ranking Democrat on the
House panel. “But I don't believe it complies with the National Security
Act, which requires that the committees be kept fully informed of intelligence
activities.”In another development Wednesday, Senator Arlen Specter,
the Pennsylvania Republican who leads the Judiciary Committee, said he had
begun drafting legislation that would require the administration to go before
the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to seek its ratification for the
program.“If they say it is unconstitutional, then there
ought to be a modification of it so that what the administration is doing
is constitutional,” Mr. Specter said of the court, in a statement on
the Senate floor. …
Full
House Committee Gets Briefing on Eavesdropping
After watching Gonzales' Andy Hardy-like responses on “Charlie
Rose” last night, it's no wonder he can't brief Congress without Hayden
by his side. I never heard so many canned platitudes in my life. Too bad Lawrence Tribe
wasn't asked to debate Gonzales. We'd being picking Albert off the floor with
a dust pan.
I've got to wonder what going to the FISA for ratification will
bring, frankly. In a previous post outlining the Washington Post article, it's
obvious if you read and dissect that the FISA court didn't feel they could weigh
in on the president's warrantless wiretaps. I wonder how this will change if
the whole court weighs in.
Another thing about the intercepts, which I hadn't made clear
earlier in this
post that includes some comments on Deborah Burlingame the day of the Senate
hearings. She makes a statement that if we'd used NSA wiretapping there might
not have been a 9/11. In an interview this week on “Hardball,” James
Risen stated that's false. He said these men were using international cell phones,
which don't give the opportunity to pinpoint a U.S. location. Of course, it
seems obvious that if we'd caught their voices we'd have acted. I just don't
see a credible argument that we wouldn't.
Specter's legislation proposal has got to give President Bush
and Dick Cheney some trepidation, not to mention heartburn. No doubt they will
be working hard to cull the information to a nucleus. Call me a cynic, but I
don't think even FISA will get the whole ball Bush and his boys have been working
on. We still don't know who was spied upon.
