Sensing a definite shift in the winds, the Bush administration has agreed to Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (FISA) Court jurisdiction of its controversial domestic wiretapping program. Just like the law demands. Instead of undertaking warrantless wiretaps as it has since 2001, the Bush administration will now seek expedited warrants from the FISA Court.
Nonetheless, the newly Democratic Congress will continue several investigations of overreaching authority by the Bush administration.
Confusion among legislators over the move abounds, apparently, as Eric Lichtblau and David Johnston report for the New York Times:
But senior lawmakers said they were still uncertain Wednesday, even after the administration’s announcement, about how the court would go about approving warrants, how targets would be identified, and whether that process would differ from the court’s practices since 1978.
At least one representative, Heather Wilson (R-New Mexico) believes the new approach by the Bush administration amounts to a “blanket, ‘programmatic’ approval of the president’s surveillance program, rather than approval of individual warrants.”
Wilson told Lichtblau and Johnston the Bush administration has “convinced a single judge in a secret session, in a nonadversarial session, to issue a court order to cover the president’s terrorism surveillance program.”
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