source: The Capital Times, Madison WI

Does it matter that Democrats took charge of the Senate this month?

President Bush seems to think so.

In a letter sent to Senate Judiciary Committee leaders, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales writes that “the president has determined not to reauthorize the Terrorist Surveillance Program when the current authorization expires.

“Any electronic surveillance that was occurring as part of the Terrorist Surveillance Program will now be conducted subject to the approval of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court,” explains the attorney general’s letter.

The court was created by Congress in 1978 under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act with the specific intent that it would supervise electronic eavesdropping within the United States. But the Bush administration, which launched its spying program in 2001, had refused to obey the court’s authority.

When it was learned late in 2005 that Bush had repeatedly authorized the monitoring of the phone conversations and e-mails of Americans, the president and his lawyers claimed that the White House did not need to consult with the court before engaging in such surveillance.

With Pennsylvania Republican Arlen Specter, a somewhat critical but cautious player, was in charge of the Judiciary Committee, the administration showed no inclination to seek proper authorization.

But Specter lost his chairmanship when Democrats took charge of the Senate after the Nov. 7 elections.

With Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy, a critic of warrantless wiretapping, now in charge of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and with Wisconsin Democrat Russ Feingold, who proposed censuring the president for failing to obtain proper authorization for his surveillance program, now in charge of the Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution, the White House has suddenly developed a newfound respect for the rule of law.

Filed under: Blog, Evidence, In the News, Constitutional Crisis, Facts: Breaking the Law, Opinion

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