Fireworks in the House today, hopefully, RE: Spying. Conyers rules!

[babylonsister]

http://www.conyersblog.us/archives/00000381.htm

House Judiciary Committee to Consider Resolution on NSA Warrantless Wiretaps

Tomorrow we will be considering Resolutions of Inquiry in the House Judiciary Committee. These resolutions pose questions to the Attorney General seeking responses to the legal basis for the Bush Administration's NSA warrantless surveillance.

While the Senate has already conducted hearings led by the Senate Republican Arlen Specter, the House has so far been silent. House Judiciary Committee Chairman, James Sensenbrenner, has opted against holding public hearings and, seeking answers, all my Democratic colleagues have joined me in introducing this legislation.

I want to alert all of you to the proceedings which will be webcast on the House network tomorrow. Democrats are united in search of these answers. Bradblog has the details of the webcast and also has a copy of the opening statement I will be giving tomorrow. If you are able, watch what you can and come back here and share with me your thoughts.

I also wanted to alert you to this American Bar Association position statement (pdf) on the legal basis (or lack thereof) for the President's warrantless wiretap program:

The American Bar Association opposes any future electronic surveillance inside the United States by any U.S. government agency for foreign intelligence purposes that does not comply with the provisions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, 50 U.S.C. §§ 1801 et seq. (FISA), and urges the President, if he believes that FISA is inadequate to safeguard national security, to seek appropriate amendments or new legislation rather than acting without explicit statutory authorization...

The American Bar Association urges the Congress to affirm that the Authorization for Use of Military Force of September 18, 2001, Pub.L. No. 107-40, 115 Stat. 224 § 2(a) (2001) (AUMF), did not provide a statutory exception to the FISA requirements, and that any such exception can be authorized only through affirmative and explicit congressional action.


And, in one further development in this issue, the UPI has a story reporting that a former NSA employee disclosed to the House Government Reform Committee the existence of a "special access" electronic surveillance program that he characterized as far more wide-ranging than warrantless wiretapping. This may be in reference to a program mentioned in James Risen's book "State of War" in which he described that there may be surveillance on millions of email at any time. If true, this is a serious issue that urgently needs to be investigated.

[Wheezy]

1. kick. n/t

[concerned citizen23]

2. He sure is

Can we clone him???

[babylonsister]

3. I wish! And welcome to DU, concerned citizen 23! nt