Behind the Surveillance Debate

[williesgirl]

Source: Newsweek

Subtltle: A federal judge's secret ruling restricting the intelligence community's surveillance powers helped spur a Capitol Hill bid to grant Bush new authority.


A secret ruling by a federal judge has restricted the U.S. intelligence community's surveillance of suspected terrorists overseas and prompted the Bush administration's current push for "emergency" legislation to expand its wiretapping powers, according to a leading congressman and a legal source who has been briefed on the matter.

The order by a judge on the top-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court has never been publicly acknowledged by administration officials—and the details of it (including the identity of the judge who wrote it) remain highly classified. But the judge, in an order several months ago, apparently concluded that the administration had overstepped its legal authorities in conducting warrantless eavesdropping even under the scaled-back surveillance program that the White House first agreed to permit the FISA court to review earlier this year, said one lawyer who has been briefed on the order but who asked not to be publicly identified because of its sensitivity.

The judge refused to reauthorize the complete program in the way it had been previously approved by at least one earlier FISA judge, the lawyer said, adding that the secret decision was a "big deal" for the administration.





Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20075751/site/newsweek/

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Read entire article. No wonder our criminal-in-chief and his gang of thugs are so hell bent on getting this thru Congress before the break. Trying to keep themselves out of jail, it seems. Bastards!

[leftchick]

1. and watch congress give it to him

they can not be "soft on terra" now can they? :grr:

[peacebird]

2. and the Dems are giving this to them?!? WHY?

[brentspeak]

3. They're not