I just got back from voting in the Democratic primary. Arlen Specter wasn’t on ballot and it’s a shame because I’d really enjoy voting against him (again). Specter has a habit of saying all the right things and then turning around and doing the opposite of what he has promised to do. Specter has been a vocal critic of the NSA program that does warrantless wiretaps of American citizens. But, now he has struck a deal with “conservative” Republicans on the Judiciary Committee that will make that surveillance legal.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) and conservative members of his panel have reached agreement on legislation that may determine the legality of the National Security Agency’s (NSA) surveillance program, GOP sources say.

Specter has mollified conservative opposition to his bill by agreeing to drop the requirement that the Bush administration seek a legal judgment on the program from a special court set up by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978.

Instead, Specter agreed to allow the administration to retain an important legal defense by allowing the court, which holds its hearings in secret, to review the program only by hearing a challenge from a plaintiff with legal standing, said a person familiar with the text of language agreed to by Specter and committee conservatives.

Conservative Republicans who pushed for the change say that it will help quell concerns about the measure’s constitutionality and allow the White House to retain a basic legal defense.

Typcial Specter. In order to take a case to the FISA court you have to be able to demonstrate that you have suffered harm (have legal standing). That is impossible for me to prove. They could be reading me email, listening to my phone, and tracking my movements with satellites, and I have no way of knowing because they don’t tell people they are being surveilled and the programs are top secret. If I were charged with a crime and I could raise a reasonable suspicion about how the evidence against me was collected then I might be able to get legal standing before the FISA court. But, then the government could drop the charges or stipulate that they would not use that evidence in my trial.












American citizens have no way to prevent illegal surveillance under this scenario. Making matters worse, Specter’s deal allows Sen. DeWine’s bill to get voted out of committee and go to the Senate floor. DeWine’s bill goes beyond legalizing illegal domestic surveillance to destroying investigative journalism. From Greenwald:

While DeWine’s office denied any intention to criminalize discussions by journalists of these programs, that is clearly the effect. And the fact that they are attempting to add whole new categories of criminal conduct arising out of any discussion of the Administration’s eavesdropping conduct — even if such discussion does not entail the harmful disclosure of classified information — demonstrates, yet again, that the primary lesson learned by the Administration from the NSA scandal is that new ways must be invented to punish those who report on the illegal conduct in which they engage.

These new provisions in the DeWine legislation are clearly part of the Administration’s campaign to increase the scope of whistle-blowing and journalistic activities which are treated by the government as criminal.

Specter is poised to destroy the 4th amendment and to kill the ability of the press to get evidence of official wrongdoing if that requires the leaking of classified information. That’s a double whammy.