Bush, Senate Head for Showdown on Domestic Spying
June 22nd, 2007This nonsense theater isn’t going to go anywhere. This is an enemy collaborator congress. This is just a smoke and mirrors distraction. If these idiots would simply read the court documents related to the EFF’s case against NSA/ATT, they would see the clear and present danger that the regime in the White House represents.
But no. They would rather dance around and wave their arms in an attempt to fool Joe DailyKos reader (and the like) into thinking that they’re actually doing something. Meanwhile—year in and year out—the funding continues, the program remains operational.
They’re complicit with it, which means they’re in on it. (Same as with the war.)
CUT OFF THE FUNDING!
Won’t happen.
Via: Reuters / Yahoo:
President George W. Bush headed toward a showdown with the Senate over his domestic spying program on Thursday after lawmakers approved subpoenas for documents the White House declared off-limits.
“The information the committee is requesting is highly classified and not information we can make available,” White House spokesman Tony Fratto said in signaling a possible court fight.
The Senate Judiciary Committee approved the subpoenas in a 13-3 vote following 18 months of futile efforts to obtain documents related to Bush’s contested justification for warrantless surveillance begun after the September 11 attacks.
Three Republicans joined 10 Democrats in voting to authorize the subpoenas, which may be issued within days.
“We are asking not for intimate operational details but for the legal justifications,” said Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat. “We have been in the dark too long.”
Authorization of the subpoenas set up another possible courtroom showdown between the White House and the Democratic-led Congress, which has vowed to unveil how the tight-lipped Republican administration operates.
Last week, congressional committees subpoenaed two of Bush’s former aides in a separate investigation into the firing last year of nine of the 93 U.S. attorneys.
Bush could challenge the subpoenas, citing a right of executive privilege his predecessors have invoked with mixed success to keep certain materials private and prevent aides from testifying.
Bush authorized warrantless surveillance of people inside the United States with suspected ties to terrorists shortly after the September 11 attacks. The program, conducted by the National Security Agency, became public in 2005.
