February 4, 2006

Arlen Specter appeared on Meet the Press today and went against the administration on their legal arguments for the warrantless wiretapping. "Strained and unrealistic," stand out.
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Think Progress:

RUSSERT: The administration says that they didn't need to, that they already had authority from Congress when, back in October 2002, Congress voted an authorization to go to war against Iraq, and this is part of that war.

SPECTER: I believe that contention is very strained and unrealistic. The authorization for the use of force doesn't say anything about electronic surveillance, issue was never raised with the Congress. And there is a specific statute on the books, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which says flatly that you can’t undertake that kind of surveillance without a court order."

The hearing starts tomorrow and it will be interesting to see if Specter does his job. (full transcript)

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