NSA Surveillance Leak Case Watch: Arlen Specter Asks Attorney General Gonzales to Testify Regarding Legality
Chairman of the US Senate Judiciary Committee Senator Arlen Specter, R-PA, is seen inside the court room where Saddam Hussein is being tried at the Central Criminal Court in Baghdad, Iraq, Tuesday Dec. 27, 2005. Specter met with the chief judge overseeing the Saddam Hussein trial, saying he’s ‘disappointed’ the court has allowed the former leader ‘to dominate’ the trial.
ASSociated Press: Specter Seeks Gonzales Testimony on Spying
The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said Sunday he has asked Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to testify during open hearings on the legality of the Bush administration’s domestic spying program.
Why?
First, this is NOT Domestic Spying.
Second, Attorney General Gonzales was NOT the Attorney General when President Bush first authorized the NSA program after 9/11. John Ashcroft was.
Third, Attorney General Gonzales is formerly President Bush’s White House Counsel and any conversations are attorney-client privileged communication and Gonzales will decline to answer.
Fourth, if Specter or any of the other Senators have a problem with the NSA program file a lawsuit in federal court asking to enjoin the President and see how far you get………
Let’s face it – Senator Arlen Specter should NEVER have been chosen as Senate Judiciary Committe Chairman. He is simply not up to the task. But, then look who allowed him to accede to the chairmanship – Senator Bill Frist.
But GOP Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas said, “There was no discussion in anything that I was around that gave the president a broad surveillance authority with that resolution.”
And this guy from Kansas thinks he will be President? Grandstanding Midwestern McCain.
Brownback, on ABC’s “This Week,” said the Senate Intelligence Committee also will hold hearings — closed to the public — on the NSA program.
“I think this is something that bears looking into and us to be able to establish a policy within constitutional frameworks of what a president can or cannot do,” said Brownback, considered a presidential hopeful for 2008.
He said he was “troubled by what the basis for the grounds that the administration says that they did these on, the legal basis, and I think we need to look at that far more broadly and understand it a great deal.”
Flap doubts any Senators on the Intelligence Committee are going to prescribe what the President does – nor should they.
It is called separation of powers.
And Brownback thinks he will get out of Kansas – Doubtful.
And Schumer – well……….
Academics and others will be asked to appear, part of a list of witnesses “who think the president was right and people who think the president was wrong,” Specter said.
Look at the Rasmussen Poll, Specter.
Why are you wasting taxpayer money to have a useless and meaningless hearing?
File the lawsuit – come on Flap DARES YOU!
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NSA Surveillance Watch: AP Poll- Most Say U.S. Needs Warrant to Snoop?
NSA Surveillance Leak Case Watch: Vice President Cheney Strongly Defends Eavesdropping Operation
Cox & Forkum: One Man’s Whistleblower
Global War on Terror Watch: Why the NSA Monitors Communications of Al-Qaida
NSA Surveillance Leak Case Watch: President Bush Defends NSA Surveillance
NSA Leak Case Watch: New York Times’ Reporter James Risen
NSA Leak Case Watch: Justice Deptartment Probing Domestic Spying Leak
NSA Surveillance Watch: President Had Legal Authority to OK Taps
NSA Surveillance Watch: Calls for Congressional Hearings
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