GOP Leaders Back Bush on Wiretapping, Tribunals [View All]

[RedEarth]

GOP Leaders Back Bush on Wiretapping, Tribunals

By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 14, 2006; A13




Congress's Republican leadership yesterday threw its weight behind two of President Bush's most controversial national security programs, warrantless wiretapping and extrajudicial military tribunals.

But the party leaders are having trouble getting all their members on board, including the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. And by backing the president's legislative demands, the leadership risks being labeled by Democrats as a rubber stamp for an unpopular president.

With prodding from Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) and House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 10 to 8 along party lines to approve a bill negotiated with the White House to allow -- but not require -- Bush to submit the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping program to a secret court for constitutional review.

That bill, which could come before the Senate next week, is considered by many to be a ratification of the administration's current surveillance program, which monitors the overseas phone calls and e-mails of some Americans when one party is suspected of links to terrorism. The program has been attacked by Democrats and civil liberties advocates as an excessive encroachment on Americans' privacy.

"The committee took the important step of acknowledging the president's constitutional authority to conduct foreign intelligence surveillance," said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), an ardent Bush ally.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/12/AR2006091201252_pf.html