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Bush, Senate head for showdown on domestic spying
Thu Jun 21, 2007 5:51PM EDT
By Thomas Ferraro
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush headed toward a 
showdown with the Senate over his domestic spying program on Thursday 
after lawmakers approved subpoenas for documents the White House 
declared off-limits.
"The information the committee is requesting is highly classified and 
not information we can make available," White House spokesman Tony 
Fratto said in signaling a possible court fight.
The Senate Judiciary Committee approved the subpoenas in a 13-3 vote 
following 18 months of futile efforts to obtain documents related to 
Bush's contested justification for warrantless surveillance begun after 
the September 11 attacks.
Three Republicans joined 10 Democrats in voting to authorize the 
subpoenas, which may be issued within days.
"We are asking not for intimate operational details but for the legal 
justifications," said Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, a Vermont 
Democrat. "We have been in the dark too long."
Authorization of the subpoenas set up another possible courtroom 
showdown between the White House and the Democratic-led Congress, which 
has vowed to unveil how the tight-lipped Republican administration 
operates.
Last week, congressional committees subpoenaed two of Bush's former 
aides in a separate investigation into the firing last year of nine of 
the 93 U.S. attorneys.
Bush could challenge the subpoenas, citing a right of executive 
privilege his predecessors have invoked with mixed success to keep 
certain materials private and prevent aides from testifying.
Bush authorized warrantless surveillance of people inside the United 
States with suspected ties to terrorists shortly after the September 11 
attacks. The program, conducted by the National Security Agency, became 
public in 2005.
WARTIME POWERS
Critics charge the program violated the 1978 Foreign Intelligence 
Surveillance Act, which requires warrants. Bush said he could act 
without warrants under wartime powers.
In January, the administration abandoned the program and agreed to get 
approval of the FISA court for its electronic surveillance. Bush and 
Democrats still are at odds over revisions he wants in the FISA law.
"The White House ... stubbornly refuses to let us know how it 
interprets the current law and the perceived flaws that led it to 
operate a program outside the process established by FISA for more than 
five years," Leahy said.
Interest in the legal justification of the program soared last month 
after former Deputy Attorney General James Comey testified about a 
March 2004 hospital-room meeting where then-White House counsel Alberto 
Gonzales tried to pressure a critically ill John Ashcroft, then the 
attorney general, to set aside concerns and sign a presidential order 
reauthorizing the program.
With top Justice Department officials threatening to resign, Bush 
quietly quelled the uprising by directing the department to take steps 
to bring the program in line with the law, Comey said.
Leahy noted that when Gonzales, now attorney general, appeared before 
the panel on February 6, he was asked if senior department officials 
had voiced reservations about the program.
"I do not believe that these DoJ (department) officials ... had 
concerns about this program," Leahy quoted Gonzales as saying. Leahy 
added, "The committee and the American people deserve better."

-- 
"Naturally the common people don't want war: Neither in Russia, nor in 
England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after 
all, IT IS THE LEADERS of the country who determine the policy and it 
is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a 
democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist 
dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to 
the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is TELL 
THEM THEY ARE BEING ATTACKED, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of 
patriotism and exposing the country to danger. IT WORKS THE SAME IN ANY 
COUNTRY."
�
--Goering at the Nuremberg Trials