Hallelujah! Leahy, Specter to See Surveillance Docs

[L. Coyote]

Hallelujah! Leahy, Specter to See Surveillance Docs
By Spencer Ackerman - Oct 25, 2007
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004562.php

After over a year of demands, four months of subpoenas (http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004562.php) and an immeasurable amount of acrimony and mutual distrust, the White House has finally agreed to let Senators Pat Leahy (D-VT) and Arlen Specter (R-PA) -- and possibly even the whole Senate Judiciary Committee -- review the legal basis for the warrantless surveillance program. Apparently politics can compel what subpoenas can't. Congressional Quarterly:

The White House has offered leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee access to legal documents related to the National Security Agency's warrantless surveillance program, senators said Thursday.

But Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., said while the White House had offered the documents to both him and the panel's ranking Republican, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, he was pushing for the entire committee to receive access to the documents.

[L. Coyote]

1. And Out Come The Subpoenas

And Out Come The Subpoenas
By Spencer Ackerman - June 21, 2007
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003501.php

Consider the trigger pulled. Today the Senate Judiciary Committee broke an internal deadlock over President Bush's warrantless surveillance program, voting to subpoena Justice Department documents related to the program's origin. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has consistently denied requests for the documents over the past two years.

The warrantless surveillance program returned to the center of political controversy last month, when former Deputy Attorney General James Comey dramatically testified (http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/05/17/news/justice.php) that in 2004, as acting attorney general, he had refused to sign off on the then-secret program's legality. As a result, Comey testified, then-White House Counsel Gonzales and Chief of Staff Andrew Card pressed an infirm John Ashcroft to override Comey. Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and ranking member Arlen Specter (R-PA) again requested documentation from Gonzales clarifying the legal arguments justifying the program, which allows the National Security Agency to intercept international communications believed to be related to terrorism without the approval of a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge.

..... the committee voted 13 to 3 to subpoena the information.

.............

[cali]

2. Here's a link to an excellent diary analysis of

this. It's from kos and I reposted it here.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=2136779&mesg_id=2136779