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Final PATRIOT Showdown Deferred As NSA Hearings Loom

Spying on American Citizens

Final PATRIOT Showdown Deferred As NSA Hearings Loom
Late last year, the tide in Congress began to turn against the PATRIOT Act's sunsetting provisions, as legislators refused to grant a long-term extension. Despite President Bush's call for extension in Tuesday's State of Union, Congress once again put off taking any final action today, only approving a second five-week extension. While any extension is unfortunate, this delay provides an important opportunity for PATRIOT opponents. In the coming weeks, the dangers of government surveillance will come under great scrutiny. Next week, the Senate Judiciary Committee will start public hearings on the government's illegal domestic spying program. As suggested by news reports and EFF's lawsuit against AT&T for its role in the surveillance, the program is broader than the government has admitted.

Senate Intelligence Chair Endorses Domestic Spying
WASHINGTON -- The Republican chairman of the Senate intelligence committee on Friday endorsed President George W. Bush's domestic surveillance program and said the White House was right to inform only a handful of lawmakers about its existence. In a letter to the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas expressed "strong support" for a program that has raised an outcry from Democrats and some Republicans who believe Bush may have overstepped his authority. The panel is to hear testimony Monday from Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on the issue.

Rumsfeld, Cheney are cited in wiretap debate 30 Years Ago
An intense debate erupted during the Ford administration over the president's powers to eavesdrop without warrants to gather foreign intelligence, according to newly disclosed government documents. George H.W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney are cited in the documents. The roughly 200 pages of historic records obtained by The Associated Press reflect a remarkably similar dispute between the White House and Congress fully three decades before President Bush's acknowledgment he authorized wiretaps without warrants of some Americans in terrorism investigations.

The Wiretap War
Senators traded bitter barbs over President Bush's wiretapping initiative Thursday, with Republicans accusing its critics of aiding terrorists and Democrats charging its supporters of violating the Constitution. The heated exchanges at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, four days before Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' scheduled congressional testimony on the wiretapping, disrupted a session that was supposed to examine worldwide threats to the United States.

All the President’s Power
From executive orders to undeclared wars, the White House
has gone unchecked since long before George W. Bush.
Vice President Dick Cheney recently told the Washington Post that when the Bush administration entered office, it was determined to reinvigorate the presidency and reverse the steady reduction in executive power and prerogative that had persisted since Watergate. But what reduction could the vice president have had in mind? “The vice president,” noted Sen. John E. Sununu (R-N.H.), “may be the only person I know of that believes the executive has somehow lost power over the last 30 years.”

Posted by Editor at February 4, 2006 04:01 PM