US Senate want hearings - Atty Gen Defends Actions taken ?

Specter wants hearings

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid disputed Bush’s contention that members of Congress had been informed.

Reid was one of several lawmakers of both parties who have backed a planned hearing on the issue by Specter, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“Congress has not been involved in setting up this program. This is totally a program of the president and the vice president of the United States,” Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said on Fox. He said he was briefed on it only a few months ago, long after the program was reported to have been started.

Specter said he wanted to know what legal authority the White House had used. “Let’s not jump to too many conclusions. Let’s look at it analytically. Let’s have oversight hearings. And let’s find out exactly what went on,” he said on CNN’s “Late Edition.”


Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham
of South Carolina echoed the call for an investigation and said he knew of no legal basis for the White House to circumvent existing laws. “It is about winning the war, adhering to the values that we’re fighting for. And you can’t set those values aside in the name of expediency,” he said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

McCain, Pelosi comment
Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican, said, “I take him (Bush) at his word” that the order was critical to saving lives and consistent with U.S. law and the Constitution.”

“The president, I think, has the right to do this, and yet, I don’t know why he didn’t go” through court procedures, McCain told ABC’s “This Week.”

“I know that the leaders of Congress were consulted, and that’s a very important part of this equation,” McCain said.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, said she was advised of Bush’s decision “shortly after he made it” and had been given several updates.

But Pelosi, in a statement Saturday night, said that “the Bush administration considered these briefings to be notification, not a request for approval. As is my practice whenever I am notified about intelligence activities, I expressed my strong concerns during these briefings.”

On Saturday, the president said he had reauthorized the eavesdropping program 30 times since Sept. 11 and intends to continue it “for as long as our nation faces a continuing threat from al Qaeda and related groups.”

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But the real question is - is it legal - when it may have been used to adversely affect a call to "voice constitutional rights for family law change" and no other acts have been shown to warrant such neg actions taken "against a non-custodial parent wishing only to shed LIGHT" on these and other "constitutional freedom" issues?

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Forgiveness is what this should be ALL about and with NOW and Fathers Rights - Lawyers - working together to uphold the basic principles of the constitution
as outlined - honestly and ethically - on our web site...
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Stephen Rene
ParentsWhoCare.us
eBusinessProfessionals.us
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Bio: http://ebusinesspros.expage.com