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Specter Reaction to FISA Agreement
Washington, D.C.
Friday, June 20, 2008 -
U.S. Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, today released the following statement regarding the agreement between House and Senate leaders on legislation to update the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA):
“I am opposed to the proposed legislation because it does not require a judicial determination that what the telephone companies have done in the past is constitutional. It is totally insufficient to grant immunity for the telephone companies’ prior conduct based merely on the written assurance from the administration that the spying was legal.
“The provision that the bill will be the exclusive means for the government to wiretap is meaningless because that specific limitation is now in the 1978 Act and it didn’t stop the government from the warrantless terrorist surveillance program and what the telephone companies have done. That statutory limitation leaves the president with his position that his Article II powers as commander in chief cannot be limited by statute, which is a sound constitutional doctrine unless the courts decide otherwise. Only the courts can decide that issue and this proposal dodges it.”
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