Congressional Research Services, the non-partisan research group of Congress,
released a report yesterday laying significant legal doubts to President Bush’s
warantless wiretapping program.
WASHINGTON, Jan. 6 – President Bush’s rationale for eavesdropping on
Americans without warrants rests on questionable legal ground, and Congress
does not appear to have given him the authority to order the surveillance,
said a Congressional analysis released Friday.The analysis, by the Congressional Research Service, a nonpartisan
research arm of Congress, was the first official assessment of a question
that has gripped Washington for three weeks: Did Mr. Bush act within the law
when he ordered the National Security Agency, the country’s most secretive
spy agency, to eavesdrop on some Americans?The report, requested by several members of Congress, reached no
bottom-line conclusions on the legality of the program, in part because it
said so many details remained classified. But it raised numerous doubts
about the power to bypass Congress in ordering such operations, saying the
legal rationale “does not seem to be as well grounded” as the
administration’s lawyers have argued.The administration quickly disputed several conclusions in the report.
Article continues
here.
So the report can’t say for certain if the program is legal or not because of
the classification of material. If anything, this should provide a stronger need
for Congress to hold hearings into the matter, not just by Specter’s judiciary
committee but also by the intelligence committee.
The Judiciary Committee hearings are suppose to start right after the
confirmation hearings of Sam Alito. Another Republican member of the Judiciary
Committee has come out with some strong critiques of the program, and this
Senator is one that actually shocked me:
U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., on Friday said the Bush administration
needed to answer questions about spying on Americans without court
authorization. And Brownback said he disagreed with the administration’s
legal rationale, which he said could hamper future presidents during war.“There are questions that should be examined at this point in time,”
Brownback said during a news conference. […]“I do not agree with the legal basis on which they are basing their
surveillance — that when the Congress gave the authorization to go to war
that that gives sufficient legal basis for the surveillance,” he said.He said if the justification holds up, “you’re going to have real trouble
having future Congresses giving approval to presidents to go to war.”
View complete article
here. (via the
Carpet Bagger
Report)
This is actually huge. We have already had a number of Republican Senators
come out and question the program but Brownback is the first one to question it
who is from the conservative ranks. He could provide a tipping point to move the
issue into a larger bi-partisan investigation or joint congressional hearing.
This will add to pressure on the White House to answer to these questions.
Bush may feel this problem is just going to disappear or become some rambling
of the Democrats which can be turned against them this fall but he is sadly
mistaken. This issue continues to grow and remain a focus in the mainstream
media. It also will continues to be on the minds of voters as they head to the
polls this November. If Bush truly feels he has the legal ground to order such a
program then he should have no problem at all explaining that legal ground to
the very Congress which has acted as a rubber stamp for him over the past year.
The fact that he is reluctant to answer to Congress on it means their are true
doubts to the legalities of the program in the administration.
You can view the CRS report
here (pdf version).