Bush details “terror plot” to deflect NSA spying furor

The inclusion of the incident in Bush’s speech to the US National Guard Association in Washington was an obvious response to the mounting criticism of the administration’s illegal and previously secret use of the National Security Agency (NSA) to conduct warrantless wiretapping of American citizens.

The White House is confronting dissension from within the Republican Party itself over the administration’s assertion that it has “inherent” constitutional powers not only to override the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which requires going through the legal formality of obtaining a warrant from a secret intelligence court, but to abrogate all constitutional safeguards and democratic rights.

The Senate Judiciary Committee’s Republican chairman, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, announced Wednesday that he intends to introduce legislation requiring the administration to seek a ruling from the FISA court on whether its secret wiretap program is legal. The announcement came two days after Attorney General Alberto Gonzales testified before the committee that the president needed no such authorization and could unilaterally order such spying based on his powers as commander-in-chief and on the congressional resolution authorizing the use of military force to retaliate against the perpetrators of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Congresswoman Heather Wilson, a New Mexico Republican who heads a House subcommittee that oversees the NSA, also broke ranks with the administration, declaring that she had “serious concerns” about the warrantless domestic spying and calling for a full congressional investigation into the wiretap program. Wilson, who faces a tight race with a Democratic challenger next November, said that the administration stonewalled her efforts to obtain information on the spying operation.

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http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/feb2006/bush-f11.shtml