08 March 2006

Senate panel blocks eavesdropping probe

Senate Republicans have decided that they don't want to step on Bush's toes while he's spying on us. They have chosen "to reject confrontation in favor of accommodation."

Don't they care about their own privacy? Or do they feel that they and their families are safe from government probes because they're not Quakers or vegetarians or other "suspicious" types.

From today's Washington Post:
-----
The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence voted along party lines yesterday to reject a Democratic proposal to investigate the Bush administration's domestic surveillance program and instead approved establishing, with White House approval, a seven-member panel to oversee the effort.

Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) told reporters after the closed session that he had asked the committee "to reject confrontation in favor of accommodation" and that the new subcommittee, which he described as "an accommodation with the White House," would "conduct oversight of the terrorist surveillance program." The program, which became public in December, has allowed the National Security Agency to monitor phone calls and e-mails between U.S. residents and suspected terrorists abroad without first obtaining warrants from a secret court that handles such matters.

The panel's vice chairman, Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), took a sharply different view of yesterday's outcome. "The committee is, to put it bluntly, basically under the control of the White House through its chairman," he told reporters. "At the direction of the White House, the Republican majority has voted down my motion to have a careful and fact-based review of the National Security Agency's surveillance eavesdropping activities inside the United States."

[...]

Also yesterday, legislation sponsored by Sen. Mike DeWine (R-Ohio), a member of the intelligence committee, drew support from two other key GOP panel members, Sens. Olympia J. Snowe (Maine) and Chuck Hagel (Neb.). It would permit warrantless surveillance of calls between the United States and another country involving "a designated terrorist organization" for 45 days, after which the government can stop the eavesdropping, seek a warrant, or explain to Congress why it wants to continue without a warrant.
-----
[Read more.]

No comments:

Post a Comment