Spying revelation stirs GOP senators

[ProSense]

Spying revelation stirs GOP senators

BY JAMES KUHNHENN

KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS

snip...

Fanning out to different Sunday morning news shows, GOP Sens. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John McCain of Arizona all noted that a 1978 law specified that a special federal court must approve any surveillance of U.S. citizens conducted for intelligence purposes on U.S. soil.

Graham said it was insufficient for Bush simply to notify top congressional officials of his orders.

“I’m going to challenge the idea that any president, any member of Congress, can collaborate with each other and deal the courts out if the courts are required to be involved,” Graham said on “Face the Nation.”

Specter, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, stood by his decision to have hearings about the president’s orders to the National Security Agency to monitor, without a court-approved warrant, international phone calls and e-mails originating in the United States. The New York Times on Friday reported that the orders prompted the NSA to spy on hundreds and perhaps thousands of U.S. citizens and other U.S. residents.

“There are limits as to what the president can do under the Constitution, especially in a context where you have the Foreign In-telligence Surveillance Act, which makes it unlawful to have spies or surveillance or interceptions on citizens in the United States unless there is a court order,” Specter said on CNN.

more...

http://www.theolympian.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051219/NEWS/51219004

[vi5]

1. Yeah, we'll see if any of these GOP Senators who have been "stirred"

will actually do anything about it or if they will cave to their extremist cult of bush yet again on all of these issues. Furrowing ones brown and tsk tsk'ng something doesn't qualify as action Senators.

[InaneAnanity]

2. Lindsey Graham...

...seems to actually be a Republican with a conscience. He is one of the few GOP politicians i have respect for. I believe him.

[vi5]

3. Yes, and he raised his voice a lot regarding the torture issue..

but until any of these guys call for and side with those calling for people to be held accountable on these issues, then it's meaningless. In each of these instances where these guys have exhibited their consciences and gotten upset at issues like torture and domestic spying, etc. they raise a stink and get their faces and soundbites in the media but then when it comes down to it all they ask is "O.K. moving forward let's make this the policy" rather than "Who did this, how high up did it go, and let's hold them responsible and accountable for what they did to these people and to the country at large.