Senate panel approves Bush-backed spying bill

[Rose Siding]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A White House-backed bill that would enable a secret court to review President George W. Bush's warrantless domestic spying program won approval on Wednesday from the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee.
Republicans backed the measure, saying it would enable the court created by the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to examine the legality of the program begun shortly after the September 11 attacks and first disclosed last December.

But Democrats warned the measure was packed with loopholes, would expand presidential powers and could undermine civil liberties of law-abiding Americans.

On a party-line vote of 10-8, the panel approved the bill and sent it to the full Senate for an uncertain fate in advance of the hotly contested November 7 congressional elections.

http://go.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=13476984&src=rss/ElectionCoverage

[kurth]

1. NEXT: "If you don't vote for this bill, then you're for the terrorists"

Worthless rubberstamp assholes.

[warrens]

2. C'mon, kittykiller, bring this sucker to the floor for a vote

You KNOW he's going to sit on this until after the election. But he's such an arrogant prick that if he thinks he can ram it through, he might take a shot at it. Of course, anyone in a close race who votes for it is going to be the recipient of some very trenchent negative ads.

Every day, America likes fascism less and less.

[gumby]

3. The Repubs will be working overtime

to consolidate Dear Leader's Ultimate Power before the elections.

[savemefromdumbya]

4. GOP are determined aren't they

[thecrow]

5. Is it the FISA court who will absolutely decide this ?

I would think they would be very pissed about all of this warrantless spying.
......And.....
I thought this spying and wiretapping started BEFORE 9-11.

[damntexdem]

6. Will enough Dems have the cojones to filibuster this?

If not, figure yet more civil liberties are lost, and that the U.S. will sink to even-lower pariah status in the world. Even if the Dems win control of one or both houses of Congress in November, the Rethugs will have many weeks to further destroy our country -- unless the Dems can learn to stand up to them.

[joanski0]

7. Senator Rockefeller stated on the Senate Floor

this morning that this bill should NOT be brought up on the Floor until ALL 100 Senators have been briefed on the program. Senator Specter hasn't even been briefed on it. Yet, Rockefeller says, the pResident* keeps saying that Congress has been briefed.

Of course, no Republicans will pay any attention to Rockefeller and Frist will bring it up anyway. Frist said he's bringing it up after they are finished with the Port Security Bill.

[quiet.american]

8. Secret courts, domestic spying program, lies

What country is this?