NYT: Bipartisanship on hold (re: wiretapping bill)

[pnwmom]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/10/opinion/10fri1.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

. . . . Mr. Bush made it clear that, for now, his idea of how to “put the elections behind us” is to use the Republicans’ last two months in control of Congress to try to push through one of the worst ideas his administration and its Republican allies on Capitol Hill have come up with: a bill that would legalize his illegal wiretapping program and gut the law that limits a president’s ability to abuse his power in this way.

SNIP

The bill Mr. Bush wants was drafted by Vice President Dick Cheney’s lawyers and by Senator Arlen Specter, the outgoing Republican chairman of the Judiciary Committee. Mr. Specter presented it as a compromise that would regulate the president’s ability to spy on Americans’ phone calls and e-mail without a court order. It really was a cave-in to Mr. Bush’s effort to expand his power beyond limits that have existed for nearly 30 years.

Mr. Bush has acknowledged that he authorized the National Security Agency to conduct certain kinds of domestic wiretapping without obtaining the warrant required by the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. He has claimed that the law hindered the hunt for terrorists, but has not offered a scrap of evidence for that claim. He has also never described the program’s overall scope, and almost none of the lawmakers who will vote on this bill if Mr. Bush has his way have any idea what it entails.

SNIP

There are plenty of responsible lawmakers in both parties who are sympathetic to the idea that the executive branch needed more flexibility to pursue terrorists after 9/11. It has been obvious all along that if the president feels current law is too restrictive, he should explain its shortcomings to members of Congress and ask them to amend it. The Republican majority was never going to insist on that, but the new Democratic leadership might.

The White House refuses to explain itself because this has never been about catching terrorists. It is about overturning the crucial limits placed on executive authority after Watergate and Vietnam. Mr. Cheney and a few other hard-liners have been trying to turn back the clock and have succeeded in some truly scary ways, including the military commissions act they pushed through Congress before the elections. It is vital that they not be allowed to do any more harm.