Sen. Specter Emerges as Key Civil Liberties Advocate in Patriot Act Markup

Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) just gave a remarkable speech at the Senate Judiciary Committee markup session explaining why he’s voting against reauthorization of the Patriot Act provisions because the substitute Leahy-Feinstein bill, which I described earlier today, doesn’t adequately protect American civil liberties.

Responding to Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s More…

Wiretapping in Context

Julian Sanchez reads through the annual federal criminal wiretapping report so I don’t have to. On the surface it appears that federal wiretapping has declined while state-level wiretapping is, well …

This profound “decline” at the state level was from the highest number of authorizations in a decade to

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There’s Really Nothing I Can Add to Arlen Specter Coverage, BUT

Via ThinkProgress, this hot new New York Review of Books piece by Specter couldn’t possibly go over well with the GOP caucus:

First, I intend to introduce legislation that will mandate Supreme Court review of lower court decisions in suits brought by the ACLU and others that challenge

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Harman to Holder: Investigate the Wiretapping of Congress

Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), under fire for seemingly promising to intervene in a Justice Department probe and caught on a wiretap — Harman denies all wrongdoing — is demanding the department investigate improper wiretapping of her Congressional colleagues. (And also to release the transcripts of her own tapped calls.) More…

Harman: There’s Nothing New in the CQ Story

Via Zach Roth at TPMmuckraker, Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) released this statement in response to Jeff Stein’s CQ story:

The CQ Politics story simply recycles three year-old discredited reporting of largely unsourced material to manufacture a ‘scoop’ out of widely known and unremarkable facts – that Congresswoman Jane

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Will Harman Still Speak at AIPAC Summit Next Month?

Guess who’s scheduled to speak at the opening session of next month’s America Israel Public Affairs Committee gala in Washington? Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), who CQ reported was caught on an National Security Agency wiretap telling a “suspected Israeli agent” that she’d intervene with the Justice Department on More…

Jane Harman’s Calls Recorded Wiretapped By NSA

Whether Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) is the “member of Congress” whose National Security Agency-tapped phone calls were referenced in last week’s New York Times piece seems unlikely, for reasons I’ll get into in a second. But Jeff Stein of Congressional Quarterly has a monster story: the NSA More…

Way More Than 27 Members of Congress Were Potentially Wiretapped

I put together a preliminary list yesterday of 27 members of Congress who visited the Middle East in 2005 and 2006 — making them, per The New York Times, possible victims of illegal National Security Agency surveillance. Sadly, the release of the Bush administration Office of Legal Counsel More…

Awaiting Orrin Hatch’s Apology

You’re a maddening figure, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah). You seem like a nice enough gentleman. And then you say things like this — via Josh Orton at MyDD –  during last year’s debate over amending the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (video after the jump):

So Which Member of Congress Was Wiretapped?

The New York Times reported that the National Security Agency improperly wiretapped a member of Congress who was “part of a Congressional delegation to the Middle East in 2005 or 2006.” Greg Sargent wants to know who it was. Don’t we all. To the Googling stations!