Wednesday, March 01, 2006

Gonzales: "Err... what I meant to say was..."

Big shocker here: Gonzales is already changing his tune on his NSA warrantless domestic spying testimony. Senator Leahy is not impressed with "...their shifting legal analysis for this illegal domestic spying..."

Unfortunately, El Wapo is gullibly reporting that Arlen Specter's proposed legislation "would allow the FISA court to rule on the program's constitutionality and to oversee aspects of the surveillance operations." As so often, Marty Lederman is there to set the story straight at balkinization. He describes how, astonishingly, Specter's bill would constitute "a substantive amendment to FISA that would vastly increase the surveillance authority of the President. It would give the Executive branch everything it has always wanted, and much more: The punishment for having broken the law with impunity would be a wholesale repeal..." of FISA. Lederman's remarks are a must-read corrective to understand this supposed remedy, going forward.

And in case you missed it so far, The Times is suing the Defense Department for access to truckloads of documents on the NSA warrantless domestic spying. This is getting interesting.

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