Friday, February 03, 2006

Senate Intelligence Committee supports Bush's terrorist surveillance program

I still like Bush's line, "If I was doing something illegal, why was I briefing Congress on it?"

WASHINGTON -- Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts on Friday strongly endorsed the Bush administration's argument that the president has the authority to conduct warrantless electronic surveillance in the U.S. in pursuit of terrorists.

Presidents from George Washington to George W. Bush have intercepted communications to ascertain enemy threats to national security, Roberts, R-Kan., said in a letter to the chairman and ranking Democrat of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

"Despite legal analysis by some critics, I am confident that the president retains the constitutional authority to conduct" such spying when the primary purpose is the collection of foreign intelligence information regarding foreign powers, Roberts wrote in his 19-page letter to Sens. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.


At this point I'm actually kinda looking forward to an investigation, so that Bush and the program can be totally exonerated. That way we can start moving forward on prosecuting Risen and his informants who breached national security by leaking information to him.