Shocked Lawmakers Demand Spy Program Probe

It's been kinda slow lately. Now all Hell is breaking out.

Katherine Shrader, Associated Press Writer writes:

Dismayed lawmakers demanded on Friday that Congress look into whether the highly secretive National Security Agency was granted new powers to eavesdrop without warrants on people inside the United States.

He's even pissed off hardliner Republicans.

"There is no doubt that this is inappropriate," declared Republican Sen. Arlen Specter (news, bio, voting record) of Pennsylvania, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He promised hearings early next year.

President Bush refused to discuss whether he had authorized such domestic spying, saying to comment would tie his hands in fighting terrorists.

Nor would other officials confirm or deny whether the nation's largest spy agency was permitted to gather communications from Americans under a presidential directive signed in 2002.

Instead, they asserted in careful terms that the president would do everything in his power to protect the American people while safeguarding civil liberties.

Apparently,the easiest way safeguard civil liberties is to remove them completely.

"I will make this point," Bush said in an interview with "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer." "That whatever I do to protect the American people — and I have an obligation to do so — that we will uphold the law, and decisions made are made understanding we have an obligation to protect the civil liberties of the American people."

The reported program, first noted in Friday's New York Times, is said to allow the agency to monitor international calls and e-mail messages of people inside the United States. But the paper said the agency would still seek warrants to snoop on purely domestic communications — for example, Americans' calls between New York and California.

"I want to know precisely what they did," said Specter. "How NSA utilized their technical equipment, whose conversations they overheard, how many conversations they overheard, what they did with the material, what purported justification there was."

While you're at it, pass that information along to the American people. We'll use it as evidence during the Impeachment.

The full article is here:
Shocked Lawmakers Demand Spy Program Probe - Yahoo! News