WP: Wiretap Bill Moves Closer to Passage

[DeepModem Mom]

Wiretap Bill Moves Closer to Passage
After Changes, Senate Holdouts Pledge Support
By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 26, 2006; Page A03

Last-minute changes to legislation authorizing the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping program have won the support of three balking Senate Republicans, improving the chances that a bill expanding the Bush administration's surveillance authority will pass Congress this week.

The Senate Judiciary Committee approved a bill this month that would allow, but not require, the administration to submit its warrantless wiretapping program to a secret national security court for constitutional review. But three Republicans who last year helped delay the renewal of the USA Patriot Act -- Sens. Larry E. Craig (Idaho), John E. Sununu (N.H.) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) -- combined forces again to express strong misgivings about the bill's implications for civil liberties.

The senators announced yesterday that those concerns had been met by three changes to the bill....The first change removes explicit language referring to the president's inherent "constitutional authority" to pursue national security programs. According to the lawmakers, a second major change would clarify that a decision by the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court upholding the warrantless surveillance program's legality would not give blanket authorization for the president to pursue wiretaps without court approval.

The lawmakers say a third change is aimed at ensuring that warrantless surveillance of an agent of a foreign power does not include an American. Under the change, the lawmakers said, the administration would be expected to obtain a warrant if the attorney general cannot certify a "reasonable expectation" that the warrantless surveillance will not involve a U.S. citizen....

***

But civil libertarians and surveillance experts say the changes are less significant than the senators believe. Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies, said the legislation still amounts to a sweeping rewrite of federal law to allow the president to conduct "massive warrantless surveillance of Americans" with no court oversight....(F)ormer FBI and CIA director William H. Webster, former FBI director William Sessions, and 12 other former national security officials released a statement opposing the latest Senate proposal, saying it would return surveillance law to "murky waters."...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/25/AR2006092501021.html

[babylonsister]

1. Bookmarked for later. I know this is really important. K&R. nt

[annabanana]

2. k&r. . . . n/t

[w4rma]

3. The spy on Democrats law. (nt)

[williesgirl]

4. Pleased to submit 5th vote - keep these bastards from doing this!

[gulfcoastliberal]

5. Glad to see our dems united, fighting this tooth & nail, filibustering all

day and night, holding major press conferences... oh wait, that must have been when we had an opposition party that actually opposed what the repukes are doing to this country... oh well... Guess the dems will roll over and pass wiretapping, torture, whatever the repukes want. Sad that the only opposition to the torture came from the repukes own ranks... sad...

[babylonsister]

6. This was posted earlier on Rawstory: Bush White House subpoenaed

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/BREAKING__Bush_White_House_subpoenaed_0829.html

Bush White House subpoenaed by wiretap lawyers

Michael Roston and Brian Beutler
Published: Tuesday August 29, 2006

Two attorneys representing claimants in a lawsuit over wiretapping by the National Security Agency claim that they have sent subpoenas to the White House today, RAW STORY has learned.

Bruce Afran and Carl Mayer, who say they represent hundreds of plaintiffs in lawsuits against Verizon, AT&T, and the US Government, will announnce today that they are serving both the Bush administration and Verizon with subpoenas.

The announcement is due to arrive at 4:30 PM, outside of Verizon headquarters in New York, RAW STORY has confirmed.

Mayer tells RAW STORY that the subpoenaes, directed to President George Bush, the Office of Legal Counsel, the Department of Justice, and the Chief Legal Counsel for Verizon, have already been sent, and should reach their targets tomorrow.

The subpoenas come on the heels of two federal court decisions that were seen as blows to the Bush Administration warrantless spying program.

Earlier this month, federal judge Anna Diggs Taylor ruled the entire program unconstitutional and illegal; another federal judge in San Francisco rejected the Bush Administration's attempt to dismiss these lawsuits by claiming they breach national security.

Mayer explained that the subpoena seeks to learn "whether the Bush administration has unlawfully targeted journalists, peace activists, libertarians, members of congress or generated an 'enemies list.'"

Afran, a former Green Party candidate for New Jersey Senate, told RAW STORY he expected the White House to again claim that the state secrets doctrine forbade it from answering the subpoena, but called the claim "absolute nonsense."

"That's an invitation for presidents to write their own rules and we've had judges multiple times say that state secrets is not a defense," he explained, adding, "We hope the White House will realize the need to cooperate."

[DeepModem Mom]

7. a.m. kick