Oversight Sham on NSA Wiretapping

Arlen Specter has done it again.

WASHINGTON - The White House has conditionally agreed to a court review of its controversial eavesdropping program, Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter said Thursday.

Specter said President Bush has agreed to sign legislation that would authorize the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to review the constitutionality of the National Security Agency's most high-profile monitoring operations.....

"If the bill is not changed, the president will submit the Terrorist Surveillance Program to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court," Specter said. "That is the president's commitment."

Specter said the court would make a one-time review of the program rather than performing ongoing oversight of it.

Effectively Specter's offer allows the administration to push into the FISA court which accomplishes several things in their favor. 1) It pushes the hearing into a court more likely to favor, or at least not be shocked by, secret montoring programs like a normal federal judge would be.

2) It pushes a hearing to a court whose constitutional expertise is around the Fourth Amendment, not separation of powers issues.

3) According to the "agreement" with Specter, it offers a one time OK for all monitoring going forward into the future, effectively cutting out any future oversight by courts or legislators.

4) As all proceedings of this court are highly classified, any embarrassments or other disclosures would be contained.

5) It's fully unclear who will represent the anti-government side. Will it be a representative of the Congress, chosen by the Republican majority? Or maybe someone from the justice department? Certainly, any litigator chosen under this deal is likely to be far less zealous than an independent ACLU lawyer.

And, finally, and most importantly, 6) "the bill also would give the attorney general power to consolidate the 100 lawsuits filed against the surveillance operations into one case before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court." So, all the civil cases would be rolled up and thrown away.

Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, the committee's senior Democrat, said Bush could submit the program to the court right now, if he wished. He called the potential legislation "an interesting bargain."

"He's saying, if you do every single thing I tell you to do, I'll do what I should have done anyway," Leahy said.

One more note: "An administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the bill's language gives the president the option of submitting the program to the intelligence court, rather than making the review a requirement."

Way to go, Arlen. Way to go.