http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2006-06-14-our-view_x.htm?csp=34With its wiretapping of international phone calls and collecting a database of domestic phone records, the Bush administration is busy watching for evildoers.
Today, six months after The New YorkTimes disclosed that the National Security Agency has been wiretapping international phone calls of U.S. residents without court orders, and one month after USA TODAY revealed that the NSA has been compiling a huge database of domestic phone records, Congress is poised for its first action.
Apparently not content to ignore Congress, the White House is now trying to run it. In an angry letter to Cheney, Specter said he had been advised that "the telephone companies had been instructed not to provide any information" to his committee.
Congress has a right and a responsibility to learn about these secret programs — whether the vice president likes it or not. The wiretapping program might involve an unlawful expansion of executive power carried out under a cloak of secrecy. The call records program also raises constitutional questions, as well as the likelihood that such a vast database will inevitably be abused, by this administration or a future one.