NYT: Wiretapping Review (negotiated by Senator Specter, WH) Is Criticized

Wiretapping Review Is Criticized
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
Published: July 15, 2006

WASHINGTON, July 14 — Critics of the Bush administration’s program for wiretapping without warrants said Friday that they would fight a new White House agreement to let a secret court decide the constitutionality of the operation, and the compromise plan failed to deter lawmakers from offering up competing proposals of their own.

The agreement, completed Thursday by Senator Arlen Specter after negotiations with the White House, drew immediate scrutiny in Washington, as politicians, national security lawyers and civil rights advocates debated its impact and legal nuances.

The plan would allow the secret court known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which normally issues wiretapping warrants in terror and spying cases, to review the program and decide on its legality. The proposal would have to be approved by Congress.

Representative Adam Schiff, a California Democrat who has been critical of the National Security Agency wiretapping program, said in an interview Friday that he saw the White House-Specter proposal as “a further abdication” of the role of Congress in setting rules for federal surveillance and wiretapping....Representative Heather A. Wilson, the New Mexico Republican who leads the intelligence subcommittee with oversight of the N.S.A., proposed legislation Friday that she said would strengthen Congressional oversight of the surveillance program and “modernize” intelligence-gathering techniques. Among other provisions, Ms. Wilson’s bill would allow the government to monitor the communications of suspected terrorist targets without a court order “for a period not to exceed 45 days following a terrorist attack” and require Congressional certification for any extensions....

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“Senator Specter has sold out his committee by caving to everything the White House requested to continue illegal, warrantless spying on American citizens,” Shayana Kadidal, a lawyer with the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York, which is suing the government over the N.S.A. program, said Friday. “This is not a compromise. It is a sellout.”...

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/15/washington/15nsa.html?hp&ex=1153022400&en=7aa0afc622130f86&ei=5094&partner=homepage

I now believe that anyone remotely politically inclined is being blackmailed -- or the files are ready so that a few hints can be whispered to let the person know that if they don't "behave" -- secrets will be revealed.

They have pictures of Arlen with a sheep.

of specter and bush!

electronic voting machine theft.

A taboo subject even the idiot Democrats won't initiate, even though they've, (we've) have been losing stolen elections, election after election.

Without our sacred vote, we can't change ANYTHING.

Do you get it yet? It's all just smokescreens and pacifiers for us!