[Infowarrior] - Senate won't quiz telecoms about NSA spying

Tue Jun 6 18:45:49 EDT 2006

Senate won't quiz telecoms about NSA spying

By Anne Broache
http://news.com.com/Senate+wont+quiz+telecoms+about+NSA+spying/2100-1028_3-6
080646.html

Story last modified Tue Jun 06 14:55:38 PDT 2006

A prominent Republican senator on Tuesday backed away from his pledge to
question executives from telecommunications companies that have allegedly
been cooperating with the government's secret wiretapping program.

Arlen Specter said that after discussions with the Bush administration and
Senate Intelligence Committee colleagues who had been more fully briefed on
the National Security Agency program, he was "prepared to defer on a
temporary basis" requiring representatives from AT&T, Verizon Communications
and BellSouth to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which he
leads.

The Pennsylvania senator, who had emerged as one of the few vocal Republican
skeptics of the warrantless surveillance, had promised to organize such a
hearing after USA Today reported last month that the nation's three leading
telecom companies had opened up their lines to the NSA. (Some of those
companies have since denied their participation.) He said Tuesday that the
companies voiced willingness to discuss the topic in a closed session but
wouldn't be able to reveal classified information, which he found
"insufficient and unacceptable."
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Specter said he was willing to suspend the inquiry largely because Vice
President Dick Cheney had provided assurances that the White House would be
more receptive to pending legislation--including a proposal chiefly backed
by Specter himself--that would send the existing NSA program and all future
surveillance plans to a special court for review of their constitutionality.

That decision, announced at an afternoon committee meeting, clearly startled
a number of Specter's Democratic colleagues.

"Why don't we just recess for the rest of the year...and simply say we'll
have no more hearings, and Vice President Cheney will just tell the nation
what laws we'll have--he'll let us know which laws will be followed and
which laws will not be followed," deadpanned Patrick Leahy, the committee's
ranking Democrat. "Heck, it's a nice time in Vermont this time of year.
That'd make my life a lot easier."

Specter said that he didn't intend to abandon scrutiny of the program. He
said the committee is currently negotiating a time for next week or the week
after to bring in Attorney General Alberto Gonzales again and plans to ask
him about the telecom companies' involvement.

Had enough committee members been present to allow for it, Massachusetts
Democrat Ted Kennedy said, he would have ordered a formal vote on whether to
summon the telecom companies--although he acknowledged such an idea would
likely be defeated.

The committee wants to learn "not who's listening on who; we're not trying
to find out what is happening on the telephones, but what is the legal and
constitutional justification that was given to those companies," Kennedy
said. "If we don't have a responsibility to deal with that, who in the world
does?"

Of the four Democrats present, only Calif. Sen. Dianne Feinstein--an
Intelligence Committee member who said she'd been briefed "very thoroughly"
on the program--said she agreed with Specter's decision.

"I don't know what would be served by issuing a subpoena here," she said.
"It seems to me that the Intelligence Committee having reviewed that program
knows what questions to ask, and they cannot be asked in open session."

She did suggest, however, that the Intelligence Committee bring in the
telecom company representatives for its own private round of questioning.