Specter falsely denied proposing amnesty for illegal eavesdropping

Thursday, June 15, 2006
Specter falsely denied proposing amnesty for the Administration's illegal eavesdropping
Glen Greenwald
http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/06/specter-falsely-denied-proposing_15.html


Last Friday, Walter Pincus of the Washington Post reported that Sen. Arlen Specter had proposed legislation which included blanket amnesty for anyone who has violated FISA, i.e., a "provision that seems to ensure that no one would be held criminally liable if the current program is found illegal under present law."

That same day, the ACLU issued a Press Release objecting that Specter was trying "to win administration support by . . . creat(ing) a retroactive exception to criminal liability when warrantless wiretapping is done at the president’s direction under a claim of inherent authority." These reports created a limited but intense backlash -- there was abundant fury in the blogosphere over the notion that Congressional Republicans would attempt to shield the president and his aides from criminal liability arising out of their illegal eavesdropping conduct, and CNN's Jack Cafferty said that Specter "has turned out to be yet another gutless Republican worm cowering in the face of pressure from the administration and fellow Republicans. "

But almost immediately, that controversy became extremely confused and muddled because Specter went on CNN on Sunday and categorically and unambiguously denied the truth of these reports. When asked directly by Wolf Blitzer if he had proposed "blanket amnesty to anyone who authorized these wiretaps," Specter said:

" Absolutely not. That was an erroneous report. If anybody has violated the law, they'll be held accountable, both as to criminal conduct and as to civil conduct. And in no way did I promise amnesty or immunity or letting anybody off the hook."

~snip~

I have now obtained (with the help of the ACLU) a copy of Specter's marked-up proposed legislation (.pdf), which makes quite clear that Specter simply was not telling the truth when he denied proposing amnesty to the administration. The bill in question was one which Specter substituted last week in the Judiciary Committee for the prior legislation he proposed back in March (the reason the new version was not available online was because -- according to the ACLU -- he introduced it only in the Committee, but not yet on the Senate floor).

In sum, Specter's legislation amends the provision of FISA which provides for criminal penalties, and then, astonishingly, makes those revisions retroactive all the way back to 1978 (when FISA was enacted). The effect and almost certainly the intent of those revisions is to immunize the President and anyone acting under his authority from criminal liability for violating FISA -- just as the Post and the ACLU correctly reported, and just as Specter falsely denied.

~snip~

Important read. (Bold emphasis-mine). Single-bullet Specter is such a POS.

I created a thread about his outrageous proposal based on above linked story last week, which was remarkably short-lived, the essence of reactions being why do we democrats even give this Republican Bush shill the time of day at DU..

Here's ONE MORE good reason. Because he's crafy crafty crafty and dangerous.

Might not be the kind of fresh press he was counting on having to combat, heh.

Glad the blogs out there and the ACLU and you tore into this good! Thanks again.

K&R!

Pentagon RNC talking point papers
Bush caught in a false claim contradicted and exposed by Iraq VP

Abuse of power so egregious, so blatant and reckless-- so in your face they are not even taking the effort to try mask it.