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Republican senator angry at cheney on nsa eavesdropping { June 7 2006 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/06/07/nsa/http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/06/07/nsa/
Specter blasts Cheney's efforts on NSA hearing
From Terry Frieden
CNN
Wednesday, June 7, 2006; Posted: 9:10 p.m. EDT (01:10 GMT)
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday sent an angry letter to Vice President Dick Cheney threatening to subpoena executive-branch officials on a domestic eavesdropping program and other contentious issues.
The three-page letter was sent a day after the exasperated chairman, Sen. Arlen Specter, openly complained about the Bush administration's refusal to cooperate with his panel.
The Pennsylvania senator acknowledged taking the "unusual step" of sending to a fellow Republican a stinging open letter. (See the full letter -- PDF)
"It is neither pleasant nor easy to raise these issues with the administration of my own party," Specter wrote.
But the letter was sharply personal. Specter chastised the vice president for going behind his back to lobby committee members to limit the hearings and not telling him, even though there were opportunities to do so when both leaders attended an event with other Republicans.
Specter demanded cooperation, starting with getting information on the National Security Agency's no-warrant surveillance program. (Watch Specter detail reasons for feud -- 7:22)
"If an accommodation cannot be reached with the administration, the Judiciary Committee will consider confronting the issue with subpoenas," said Specter, who would need to find the votes to do so.
Cheney spokeswoman Lea Anne McBride told CNN the vice president "has not had a chance to study the letter." But she said the administration plans to continue to "work with members of Congress in good faith" on oversight of the NSA program.
The mounting frustrations since the December revelations of the NSA program to eavesdrop on telecommunications without court-issued warrants boiled over after a pair of hearings Tuesday that left Specter frustrated and somewhat isolated.
During a morning session, Specter and other committee members were annoyed the Justice Department had sent a mid-level official to testify but not respond fully to their questions on the potential prosecution of journalists who published leaked material about the program.
Hours later, as a session on calling major telephone companies to testify on the NSA program was about to begin, Specter learned the vice president had circumvented him and won backing from other GOP members on the panel to prevent the testimony.
The lobbying maneuver engineered by Cheney and Sen. Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican, left Specter's hands tied.
Hatch said he had won assurances from Cheney that the White House would at least review proposed legislation to restrict aspects of NSA surveillance programs. In exchange, the committee would not press the phone companies to divulge their cooperation with the government.
Faced with a lack of support, Specter reversed course and said he would not call on the phone companies to testify about allegedly providing the NSA with records of millions of phone calls. Democrats then angrily pounced on Specter, charging he had "caved" on a promise to call the phone executives.
In a particularly pointed personal remark, Specter said in his letter to Cheney that he was "surprised to say the least that you sought to influence, really determine, the action of the committee without calling me first, or at least calling me at some point.
"This was especially perplexing since we both attended the Republican senators caucus lunch yesterday and I walked directly in front of you on at least two occasions en route from the buffet to my table," Specter wrote.
The committee is scheduled to resume business Thursday morning, and the NSA surveillance program is again on the agenda.
Bush acknowledged the existence of the program in December after The New York Times reported that the government was listening in -- without obtaining a court order -- on phone calls involving people suspected of having ties to terrorists, as long as one person was outside the United States.
Some legal scholars have said the program is an illegal and unwarranted intrusion on Americans' privacy, but the Bush administration defends it as a necessary tool in the battle against the al Qaeda terrorist network.
The Foreign Intelligence Security Act requires that the government obtain a court order from a secret FISA court to tap the phones of American citizens inside the country.
President Bush has argued that the congressional resolution that authorized military action after the September 11, 2001, attacks, along with his authority as commander in chief of the military, gives him the power to initiate wiretaps without a court order.
Specter introduced legislation in March that would require the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court to rule on the constitutionality of the program.
"Notwithstanding my repeated efforts to get the administration's position on this legislation, I have been unable to get a response, including a 'no,' " Specter wrote.
CNN's Ed Henry contributed to this report.
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