Specter's Letter to Cheney - June 7, 2006

^{Category: War on Terror}

On Wednesday, Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, wrote a scathing letter to Vice President Dick Cheney castigating him for his attempt to block Senate investigation of the Bush administration's NSA surveillance efforts. Although Vice President Cheney wrote a conciliatory response, Sen. Specter's threat to subpoena material from the Bush administration marks a new phase of development in the Senate response to the Spygate scandal. From the letter:

There is no doubt that the NSA program violates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act which sets forth the exclusive procedure for domestic wiretaps which requires the approval of the FISA Court. It may be that the President has inherent authority under Article II to trump that statute but the President does not have a blank check and the determination on whether the President has such Article II power calls for a balancing test which requires knowing what the surveillance program constitutes.

This is a point that has been raised by the ACLU for some time: That there is no way to even ascertain that President Bush's program is terrorism-related unless some kind of oversight system is in place.

See also:

• Frist Threatens Senate Intelligence Committee, Shuts Down Spygate Investigation
• Specter Threatens to Cut NSA Funding in Response to Spygate
• Full Text of Feingold's Speech Calling for a Censure Resolution