If Specter Is Behind It, It’s Pro-GOP

And if Bush agreed to it, it’s Pro-Bush administration, Pro-GOP, Pro-government snooping-on-Americans, Pro-secretive shenanigans and ANTI-AMERICAN PEOPLE. The NYT reports this morning that the White House has agreed to let a secret court decide whether the NSA wiretaps were legal or illegal. This secret court is the FISC--Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which is part of FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act). FISA is a legal entity that was established for the purpose of deciding "foreign intelligence" surveillance matters. It is separate from ordinary law enforcement surveillance. But here’s the most interesting part. The FISC is a secret—ne plus ultra secret--court. It doesn’t have to publish its findings. It makes its decisions in secret and they stay secret. The FISC bases its findings on presentations from the Department of Justice. Yeah, that’s right, as in: Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and the Department of Justice. Um…let me amend my former statement. Here’s the most interesting part: Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee) worked with President Bush and White House officials to agree on a plan to review the wiretapping program. Are we talking foxes in charge of the henhouse, or what? As the NYT says, “If approved by Congress, the deal would put the court, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, in the unusual position of deciding whether the wiretapping program is a legitimate use of the president’s power to fight terrorism. The aim of the plan, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales told reporters, would be to ‘test the constitutionality’ of the program.’” Representative Jane Harman, (D-CA) the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said the Specter-White House agreement “is an end run” around the FISA law requiring the approval of individual wiretapping warrants. “I have great respect for this guy,” Harmon said of Mr. Specter, “but he hasn’t been briefed on this program, and he’s giving away in this legislation a core Fourth Amendment protection by basically saying that the FISA court has permission to bless the entire program, which will abandon as best I can tell the requirement of individualized warrants.” With all due respect to Jane Harmon, I have no respect whatsoever-at-all-and-no-way for Arlen Specter. He’s a GOP tool, a weasel, a scum-sucking, forked tongued betrayer of the American people. BTW, he still strongly believes that a magic bullet killed President Kennedy. Arlen Specter will always support any plot, scheme or plan that consolidates and increases the secret powers of the GOP. And this plot/scheme/plan is a beaut. The FISC will go into secret session, decide that the NSA secret wiretapping was absolutely and incontrovertibly legal, but it will not publish its findings. The only way we will know is when AG Gonzales stands up in front of TV cameras does his Gonzales smirk and says, “I can’t give you any details because they are secret. But surveillance cameras in US malls have revealed an upsurge in the number of low-income senior citizens going into malls in hot weather and not buying anything. Therefore, in order to differentiate between low-income senior non-buyers and terrorists, the US government is requiring all low-income seniors to wear buttons in the shape of red/white targets on their lapels. This is necessary for national security and it was made a US Department of Justice law by an entity I cannot reveal, at a time I cannot reveal, by a court whose name I cannot reveal, in findings I cannot reveal by men whose name are secret.”