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 News from Around the Americas | September 2006 
US Senate Republicans Block Attempt to Curb Wiretapping
 Laurie Kellman - Associated Press
Washington - Senate Republicans blocked Democratic attempts to rein in President Bush's domestic wiretapping program Wednesday amid a sustained White House campaign to give the administration broad authority to monitor, interrogate and prosecute terrorism suspects.
While refusing to give the president a blank check to prosecute the war on terrorism, Republicans in the Senate Judiciary Committee kept to the White House's condition that a bill giving legal status to the surveillance program pass unamended.
By voice vote and roll calls, Republicans defeated Democratic amendments to insert a one-year expiration date into the bill and require the National Security Agency to report more often to Congress on the standards for its domestic surveillance program.
"We just don't want to see Americans' rights abused for the next 50 or 60 years because of an oversight on our part," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who joined some Republicans in opposing some amendments offered by her Democratic colleagues.
But Republicans countered that the bill represented the best deal on the matter and should not be amended - conforming with the White House's condition that Bush would sign it into law if passed unchanged.
The deal is part of the White House's election-season campaign to preserve its ability to fight the war on terror despite congressional concerns about civil liberties.
A parade of White House officials seeking support for legal tools against terrorists was to culminate Thursday with an appearance by Bush himself before House Republicans anxious to maintain their majority in the November elections.
Under firm pressure from the administration, Republicans were expected to advance separate versions of bills to give legal status to Bush's warrantless wiretapping program, but also impose some restrictions not embraced by the White House.
Behind-the-scenes negotiations were intense Wednesday. As the Senate bill moved toward committee approval, the House Judiciary Committee abruptly canceled its markup that had been scheduled to happen simultaneously. The reason for the cancellation wasn't immediately clear.
Specter, sponsor of one administration-backed bill, acknowledged that GOP lawmakers fighting for re-election may not embrace a measure bearing Bush's stamp of approval.
"It is popular to have bills that are not White House bills," Specter, R-Pa., told reporters recently.
He was speaking of Republican support for the House version, which is opposed by the White House because it imposes more restrictions on the program than Specter's.
Sponsored by Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M., and endorsed by House GOP leaders, that measure would require the president to wait until an attack has occurred to initiate wiretapping without warrants, a provision administration officials say would hamper the White House's ability to prevent attacks.
Instead, the Bush administration has given Specter's version a highly conditional endorsement, as long as it is passed unchanged - not a sure thing given the amendments and substitutes that await it on the floor.
Specter's bill would submit the warrantless wiretapping program to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court for a one-time constitutional review and extend from the current three days to seven days the time allowed for emergency surveillance before a warrant application is submitted and approved by that court.
The proposals were two of several bills to alter or change portions of Bush's war on terror that inspired him this week to send several emissaries to Capitol Hill.
Vice President Dick Cheney and other top aides encountered stiff resistance from senators and House leaders. The standoffs raised questions about whether the president could unite Republicans on his anti-terror agenda before November's midterm elections.
Cheney and White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten appealed to Senate Republicans during their weekly policy lunch Tuesday to pass legislation that would let the president begin prosecuting terror suspects. The legislation also would limit the circumstances under which a government interrogator could be prosecuted for mistreating a detainee.
CIA Director Michael Hayden also met with lawmakers this week on detainee treatment.
Democrats Call NSA's Input to Senate Panel Inappropriate
Walter Pincus - Washington Post
Wednesday 13 September 2006
Democrats on the Senate intelligence committee are complaining that the National Security Agency has played politics in support of the secret program to intercept phone calls between alleged terrorists in the United States and abroad.
On July 27, shortly after most members of the committee were briefed on the controversial surveillance program, the NSA supplied the panel's chairman, Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), with "a set of administration approved, unclassified talking points for the members to use," as described in the document.
Among the talking points were "subjective statements that appear intended to advance a particular policy view and present certain facts in the best possible light," Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.) said in a letter to the NSA director.
The cleared statements included "I can say the program must continue" and "There is strict oversight in place ... now including the full congressional intelligence committees," as well as "Current law is not agile enough to handle the threat posed by sophisticated international terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda" and "The FISA should be amended so that it is technologically neutral." FISA refers to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the current law.
Rockefeller and six Democrats on the panel wrote Lt. Gen. Keith B. Alexander, the NSA's director, on Aug. 29 that they believed those statements "appear intended to advocate particular policies rather than provide guidance on classification." The letter added: "We believe that it is inappropriate for the NSA to insert itself into this policy debate."
Alexander had earlier told Rockefeller that the talking points were in response to requests from more than one committee Democrat for guidance as to what could be said publicly as the policy debate began over what should be done with the program.
One element particularly troubling to the Democrats was the statement that there was "strict" congressional oversight of the program, because, as one senior Democrat said yesterday, committee members are still awaiting requested documents such as the original authorization by President Bush that initiated the program.
In a recent letter to Rockefeller, Alexander said he regretted that the NSA talking points were "misperceived as political." Rockefeller is planning to expand on the Democrats' concerns about their attempts to conduct oversight on the program in a speech today on the Senate floor. |
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