Stop the presidential power grab
CONGRESS MUST NOT CAVE TO WHITE HOUSE ON OVERSIGHT OF DOMESTIC EAVESDROPPING
Mercury News Editorial

"When President Bush's secret wiretapping program first came to light, Sen. Arlen Specter, a moderate Republican from Pennsylvania, was one of the few in the president's party to be troubled it.

Now Specter, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, has done an about-face despite the fact that the program appears to violate the Constitution, circumvents the law on secret-intelligence wiretaps and is clearly a unilateral power grab by the president. Working with the White House, Specter has crafted a bill that would rubber-stamp the program. Worse, it would essentially embed into federal law the notion that the president has the power under the Constitution to conduct electronic surveillance on anyone he wants, indefinitely and without judicial oversight, making a mockery of the right to privacy. The bill could come before the Senate Judiciary Committee as early as Thursday and must be defeated.

Specifically, the president's secret program authorized the National Security Agency to monitor the international phone calls and e-mails of ordinary Americans without court approval. It clearly violates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a law that created a secret court to review and authorize intelligence wiretaps requests.

Once the program came to light, Bush claimed it was necessary because FISA did not provide enough flexibility to monitor terrorists. Yet neither Bush nor his advisers ever provided evidence that FISA, which Congress has modified twice since the Sept. 11 attacks at the request of the administration, was inadequate. And senior FBI officials testified before Congress in 2002 that the law worked well...."