News from DNC:
Washington, DC - Today, during his news conference, President Bush explained that he circumvented the FISA court process to enact his domestic spying program because the current system "doesn't work." But, according to a number of news reports, the Bush Justice Department in 2002 rejected a move by the Republican Congress to loosen restrictions on domestic spying, including legal requirements to obtain a warrant from a top-secret FISA court.
In a statement to Congress, "the Justice Department said it opposed a legislative proposal to change FISA to make it easier to obtain warrants that would allow the super-secret National Security Agency to listen in on communications involving non-U.S. citizens inside the United States." The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, "the law governing such operations, was working well, the department said in 2002." A Justice Department official also noted that, the "proposed change raises both significant legal and practical issues, the administration at this time is not prepared to support it." [Knight-Ridder, 1/26/06]
This analysis directly contradicts the current, possibly illegal, Administration practice of sidestepping the courts because they say getting approval would be difficult. [New York Times, 1/25/06]
In fact, during today's press conference, President Bush argued that the FISA law was old and didn't work. He noted that, "I said, 'look, is it possible to conduct this program under the old law?' And people said, 'it doesn't work in order to be able do the job we expect us to do.' So, that's why I made the decision I made." [President Bush, 1/26/06]
Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean released the following statement on President Bush's domestic spying flip-flop:
Democrats believe that we should spy on terrorists and aggressively fight the War on Terror, and the President currently has the authority to do just that. So, why is it that on day four of the presidents PR campaign to defend his warrantless domestic spying program, he contradicted his own Justice Departments position from just a few years ago?
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