FEINGOLD CALLS ON ADMINISTRATION TO RECONSIDER ILLEGAL WIRETAPPING
PROGRAM FOLLOWING SUPREME COURT’S HAMDAN DECISION
Supreme Court’s Ruling Directly Undercuts the Administration’s
Arguments In Defense of Illegal NSA Wiretapping Program
July 17, 2006
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Russ Feingold is urging President
Bush and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to reconsider their position
that the NSA domestic surveillance program is legal following the Supreme
Court’s rejection of the Administration’s expansive theory
of executive power in the Hamdan case. In a letter to the President
and the Attorney General, Feingold urged them to reconsider the position
no later than the wiretapping program’s next periodic review.
According to the Department of Justice, the warrantless wiretapping
program is reviewed approximately every 45 days meaning that some time
in August, the Administration will evaluate whether the NSA program
should be renewed. Earlier this year, Feingold introduced a resolution
to censure the President for authorizing the warrantless surveillance
of Americans without the court approval required by law.
“The Hamdan decision is a direct repudiation of the Administration’s
theory that the President basically has unlimited power under Article
II of the Constitution,” Feingold said. “It is time for
this Administration, which too often has ignored our constitutional
system of checks and balances, to recognize that the NSA wiretapping
program has no legal basis.”
On June 29, 2006, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that
the President could not try detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,
using military commissions that Congress had not authorized. In its
decision, the Court held that the Authorization for the Use of Military
Force (AUMF) passed by Congress in September 2001 did not authorize
military commissions. The Administration had previously used the AUMF
as a basis for the wiretapping program as well.
“Now that the Supreme Court has rejected in Hamdan the weak justifications
upon which the Department of Justice has relied in approving the program
in the past, I urge you to finally recognize what has been clear to
most observers for some time -- that the NSA warrantless wiretapping
program has no legal basis,” Feingold wrote in the letter.
A copy of the letter is attached.
Read
Senator Feingold's Fact Sheet on The President’s Agreement with
Chairman Specter on NSA Wiretapping.
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