The Allen Almanac

Congress is trying to allow the White House’s warrantless wiretapping and their tribunal plans.

With prodding from Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) and House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 10 to 8 along party lines to approve a bill negotiated with the White House to allow — but not require — Bush to submit the National Security Agency’s warrantless wiretapping program to a secret court for constitutional review.

That bill, which could come before the Senate next week, is considered by many to be a ratification of the administration’s current surveillance program, which monitors the overseas phone calls and e-mails of some Americans when one party is suspected of links to terrorism. The program has been attacked by Democrats and civil liberties advocates as an excessive encroachment on Americans’ privacy.

“The committee took the important step of acknowledging the president’s constitutional authority to conduct foreign intelligence surveillance,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), an ardent Bush ally.

At the same time, the House Armed Services Committee voted 52 to 8 to ratify the White House’s version of legislation creating military commissions for trying terrorism suspects. The measure would give Bush the authority he seeks to withhold classified evidence from defendants, admit testimony that defendants might maintain was coerced, and protect U.S. intelligence agents from legal action over their interrogation methods. House Republican leaders plan to bring the tribunal bill to a vote next week.

But, finally, some Republicans are fighting back. I’m glad to see John McCain put the pompoms down and stand up against the President once again. He’s had me worried.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John W. Warner (R-Va.), Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) are holding firm against the White House and Frist in their support of an alternative tribunal bill that would limit the use of classified evidence and coerced testimony in terrorism prosecutions while maintaining broader protections for detainees against cruel and inhumane treatment. They said they will press ahead with their bill, despite the political sensitivity of the controversy in a key election year.

“Every senator and congressman should understand this is not about November 2006. This is not about your reelection,” Graham said. “This is about those who take risks to defend America.”
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McCain expressed bewilderment at an administration stand that he said would tamper with interpretations of the Geneva Conventions on the conduct of war. That stand is firmly opposed by top military lawyers. “The overwhelming majority of retired military people are weighing in on this issue and saying, ‘Don’t amend Common Article 3 [of the Geneva Conventions] because then you are allowing other nations’ ” to conclude that they, too, can change the conventions, McCain said.

McCain and his allies were unable to persuade White House negotiators to agree that an alleged enemy combatant could not be convicted on the basis of classified information that is not shared in some form with the defendant. “We’re still gridlocked on that,” McCain said. “They want to turn 200 years of criminal procedure on its head.”

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