The bill which just passed the Senate requires the administration to "describe" the procedures to the (secret) FISA court:
From Reuters:
Offered by Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, no relation to the national intelligence director, the bill would allow the administration to continue the warrantless surveillance but require it to describe to a secret federal court the procedures it uses in targeting foreign suspects.
The Senate defeated, on a 45-43 vote, a Democratic alternative, which would have placed tighter controls on the spying and provided for independent assessments of the attorney general's implementation of the measure.
2 comments:
The Senators wanted to start their vacations, and Mr. Bush said they couldn't until their homework, the gutting of the FISA law, was done.
What were they to do, postpone or cancel their vacations and stay in DC until the job was done right, or just give the President what he wanted and fly off on their lobbyist-funded junkets?
My favorite characterization of the Senate dems on this one comes from the ACLU's Caroline Fredrickson, quoted in the Wapo:
Democrats "have a Pavlovian reaction: Whenever the president says the word 'terrorism,' they roll over and play dead," said Caroline Fredrickson, Washington legislative director of the American Civil Liberties Union.
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