Put Bush's wiretaps on hold

A TIMES EDITORIAL
Published November 15, 2006


President Bush says that among his priorities for the lame duck session of Congress is approval of legislation to authorize his warrantless domestic spying program. The bill should be put on hold until next year, when the new Democratic majority in the Senate can give it the airing it never got under the Republicans.

The highly controversial program, approved by the president and run out of the National Security Agency, reportedly wiretaps the phone calls of suspects who are calling in and out of the United States. Federal law provides for ways those kinds of calls can be intercepted without obtaining a warrant as long as one is obtained soon afterward. But Bush asserts that the president has no need for a warrant when he's hunting for terrorists, even if that means spying on Americans in the process.

Legislation introduced by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., is a gift to the administration and would essentially codify the president's power to ignore current law as well as protections in the Constitution that prevent warrantless intrusions. This is what Bush wants to pass in the session that started Monday.

The administration has so far fully briefed only a handful of members of Congress on the details of the NSA program. Bush also has refused to make a reasonable case for why current law is not sufficient. He has just assumed that the Republican-led Congress would rubber stamp his excesses, as it did in passing the Military Commissions Act and retroactively approving his unilateral detainment policies.

There is no reason to rush this legislation through before the new Congress takes over in January. Bush has been allowed to continue his wiretapping program as the debate moves forward, so he can't claim that time is of the essence. Democrats should make sure this bill goes nowhere until the details have been thoroughly explored.

http://www.sptimes.com/2006/11/15/Opinion/Put_Bush_s_wiretaps_o.shtml