Spector’s final hurrah…

“The outgoing chairman of the Senate Judiciary committee, Senator Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), introduced a new spying bill on Tuesday that would increase the number of personnel involved in issuing warrants, makes minor expansions to the number of legislators told about warrantless surveillance and transfer lawsuits challenging the warrantless wiretapping program to the Supreme Court. In September, a Specter-written bill that dramatically loosened the nation’s surveillance laws passed out of committee but was never voted on by the full Senate.

The American Civil Liberties Union immediately blasted the bill as an last minute attempt to legalize the government’s warrantless wiretapping program, despite the fact that the new bill has no such language. The ACLU sees the bill as a Trojan Horse that could be approved by the Senate and then sent to a committee to be reconciled with an already-passed House bill written by Heather Wilson. That bill immunizes telecoms such as AT&T from pending lawsuits, allows the government to engage in wide-spread warrantless surveillance without getting warrants, and legalizes snooping on Americans’ communications with anyone outside the country by redefining the term “electronic surveillance.”

This bill needs to get voted on and passed in the lame duck session before the Dems take over in January. The fact that the ACLU isn’t happy means this is a REALLY GOOD bill that will enhance the program and make it immune from attack on the left.

On a related note John at Stop The ACLU lists the Ten Way the ACLU is Destroying America.