On Wednesday, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told reporters that the Justice Department agreed to share the special new orders that allow the warrantless surveillance of Americans' emails and phone to be under the supervision of the secret court it originally secretly evaded with select members of Congress. Lust Just a day after the existence of the new orders were announced,
Senators Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) and Arlen Specter (R-Pennsylvania) asked Gonzales, in the midst of the Judiciary Committee's grilling of the Attorney General, to share the orders.
So what do the heads of the Judiciary Committee think of the new orders, which have been the subject of much speculation about whether they act as warrants that allow widespread dragnets or if they are just clever variations on traditional spy wiretapping orders that require the government to tell a judge who, how and why they are wiretapping?
So far nothing, according to Leahy staffers, who said Thursday afternoon that the Senator had not yet been able to get to the secure room in the Senate where the documents are being held. (Instead, Specter and Leahy yesterday found themselves engrossed in a meeting with the Justice Department to learn what secret evidence the feds have on the man they sent to Syria to be tortured. Canada has since apologized and paid Mahir Arar some $10 million, but the U.S. says Arar remains on its no-fly list because it has additional intelligence. Canadian officials said they weren't convinced by the new evidence.)
So the wait for new clues to how the program works will likely continue through to next week...
