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Wed 17 Jan, 2007 02:38 pm
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -
President George W. Bush has decided not to reauthorize the controversial domestic warrantless surveillance program for terrorism suspects and to put it under the authority of a secret special court, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said on Wednesday.
"The president has determined not to reauthorize the Terrorist Surveillance Program when the current authorization expires," Gonzales wrote in a letter to Senate leaders.
"Any electronic surveillance that was occurring as part of the Terrorist Surveillance Program will now be conducted subject to the approval of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court," Gonzales said.
The program, adopted after the September 11 attacks, allowed the government to eavesdrop on the international phone calls and e-mails of U.S. citizens without obtaining a warrant, if those wiretaps are made to track suspected al Qaeda operatives.
Critics have said the program violated the U.S. Constitution and a 1978 law, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which made it illegal to spy on U.S. citizens in the United States without the approval of the special court.
so now it's under the authority of a special secret court? Well, I feel better now.
What's next will we all be on double secret probation?
Well, since Gonzalez is the guy who wrote that jailers breaking the arms of prisoners does not necessarily violate the Geneva Conventions, (they have to be shown to be intending to actually break the arm, as opposed to trying to twist the arm so that it stops just short of the breaking point), I suppose this is a step forward. The judges on the secret court can't be worse than Gonzalez, and probably are quite a bit better.
With Bush, one must not think of justice. Instead, you have to think of lesser degrees of injustice as constituting progress.
I hear that the management company at Watergate Towers has switched from Formula 411 to "TSP" in an effort to rid the place of bugs and dirty politics.