The other day I posted about Arlen Specter's "compromise" with the administration on oversight of the NSA's various surveillance programs, the ones they refuse to submit to the FISA court. My post was based on the Washington Post's report on Specter's compromise legislation and included the fact that Specter had proposed total immunity for anyone found in the future to have violated the constitution. Specter immediately went on CNN and denied having offered any immunity at all:
Absolutely not. That was an erroneous report. If anybody has violated the law, they'll be held accountable, both as to criminal conduct and as to civil conduct. And in no way did I promise amnesty or immunity or letting anybody off the hook.
It turns out that he was lying. Glen Greenwald has a copy of the actual legislation that Specter substituted (his "compromise") for his original oversight legislation and it quite clearly shows that Specter did, in fact, include not only total immunity, but retroactive immunity back to 1978! And remember, this is the moderate who has positioned himself as the ethical one who will keep an eye on the administration.
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Bah, and I thought I had found a Republican I could like... Oh, well, I'm sure there are others.
For once, I think Glenn has missed a trick, but I'm no law expert so please tell me your thoughts. The relevant bit of the law says the following:
Emphasis added. Now, unless I'm misreading, this wording not only grants an amnesty for FISA violations, it explicitly endorses the unitary executive claim that the president/CinC can ignore laws that restrict his ability to conduct war. This is a double victory for the wannabe tyrants, since they've got legislative support for their position without ever having to test their legal arguments in a court. We simply cannot afford to have this bill pass.