NSA Surveillance Watch: Senate Intelligence Committee Decides NOT to Pursue Investigation

The National Security Agency (NSA) logo is shown on a computer screen inside the Threat Operations Center at the NSA in Fort Meade, Maryland, January 25, 2006. U.S. President George W. Bush visited the ultra-secret National Security Agency on Wednesday to underscore the importance of his controversial order authorizing domestic surveillance without warrants.

New York Times: Senate Panel Decides Against Eavesdropping Inquiry, for Now

The Senate Intelligence Committee decided today not to investigate President Bush’s domestic surveillance program, at least for the time being.

“I believe that such an investigation is currently unwarranted and would be detrimental to this highly classified program,” Senator Pat Roberts, Republican of Kansas and chairman of the panel, said this afternoon following a closed session.

While Mr. Roberts’s announcement signaled that the administration’s eavesdropping program would not be subject to Senate scrutiny, at least for the time being, there was no guarantee that the House would not go ahead with an inquiry of its own.

Mr. Roberts said “an agreement in principle” had been reached with the administration whereby lawmakers would be given more information on the surveillance operation run by the National Security Agency.

“The details of this agreement will take some time to work out,” Mr. Roberts said.But the committee’s ranking Democrat, John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, was clearly unhappy after the meeting and said it made no sense to pursue legislation when the full details of the surveillance program were not known. Mr. Roberts said Mr. Rockefeller’s proposal for an investigation would be reconsidered when the committee reconvenes on March 7.

There is NO THERE there.

Tempest in a teapot……..

Now, what about the New York Times, James Risen and the person who “leaked”……how do you spell federal grand jury?

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NSA Surveillance Watch: Congressional Probe of NSA Surveilance Is in Doubt