Time of showdown hangs over us....

.....Like the sword of Damacles.

Courage.


WHAT IS "THE PROGRAM"? Those of you who have followed some of the convoluted tale of what we know about the NSA eavesdropping and datamining "Program," know that nothing could be more important beginning to get at the truth of what it is and isn't than issuing subpoenas.

There's no other way, the administration has made entirely clear. That's why this is really good news:

Senior House Democrats threatened Thursday to issue subpoenas to obtain secret legal opinions and other documents from the Justice Department related to the National Security Agency’s domestic wiretapping program.

If the Democrats take that step, it would mark the most aggressive action yet by Congress in its oversight of the wiretapping program and could set the stage for a constitutional showdown over the separation of powers. Absolutely right.

The subpoena threat came after a senior Justice Department official told a House judiciary subcommittee on Thursday that the department would not turn over the documents because of their confidential nature. But the official, Steven G. Bradbury, principal deputy assistant attorney general and head of the Justice Department’s office of legal counsel, did not assert executive privilege during the hearing.

Why is this so crucial?

[...] At the same time, the Bush administration is seeking new legislation to expand its wiretapping powers under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Democratic lawmakers in both the House and the Senate have argued that they do not want to vote on the issue without first seeing the administration’s legal opinions on the wiretapping program.“How can we begin to consider FISA legislation when we don’t know what they are doing?” asked Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York, who heads the subcommittee. That's why.

No, the public doesn't need to know every technical detail of what the NSA has been doing, to rebut the inevitable claim: but our legislators need to be able to clearly understand what the program entails, and to help determine what information can be made publically available that will allow the public the best information necessary to determine if it's an appropriate program, while not giving away an inappropriate technical details. And to do that, our legislators have to be able to, as Jerrold Nadler says, know what they [the NSA and the administration] are doing; that's Congress' role.

You can't oversight what you can't sight. So what's going to happen? Some opinions:

[...] On May 17, after Mr. Comey’s testimony, Mr. Nadler and Representative John Conyers Jr., Democrat of Michigan, who is the chairman of the full Judiciary Committee, wrote to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales requesting copies of Justice Department legal opinions used to support the N.S.A. wiretapping program, as well as later documents written by top Justice Department officials that raised questions about the program’s legality in 2004. The letter also asked Mr. Gonzales to provide his own description of the 2004 confrontation.

Mr. Conyers said he had not received a response from the Justice Department. “We’re going to give him two more weeks, and then, as somebody said, it’s about time process kicks in somewhere around here,” Mr. Conyers said.

In an interview after the subcommittee hearing on Thursday, Mr. Bradbury said his refusal to provide the documents was not the final word from the Justice Department on the matter.

But Mr. Nadler made it clear that he did not expect the administration to comply and said he thought he would soon have to push for subpoenas. Bush supporters will predictably object, because it will help Teh Terrorists, infringe on the Leader's power, etc. This will be another political fight: keep an eye out. Read The Rest Scale: 3 out of 5.ADDENDUM, 5/8/07, 12:19 a.m.:

I should note that the news on habeas corpus is even more cheering:

Today the Senate Judiciary Committee passed an important bill to restore habeas corpus, the sacrosanct Constitutional right to challenge government detention in court, by a vote of eleven to eight.Habeas corpus was revoked by last year's Military Commissions Act, which has been assailed as unconstitutional and un-American by leaders across the political spectrum. Today's habeas bill was backed by the Judiciary Committee's Democratic Chairman, Patrick Leahy, and its Republican Ranking Member, Arlen Specter.

"The drive to restore this fundamental right has come from both sides of the aisle," said Sharon Bradford, an attorney at the bipartisan Constitution Project, in response to today's vote.

"Restoring America's commitment to the rule of law is not a partisan cause; it is a patriotic one," she added.

Just so. Who would have thought we'd have to argue to get back to the basic principles of Magna Carta?

Now to get it the rest of the way through Congress.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.