President Agrees to Do His Job, As Long As He Doesn't Have To Answer For Not Doing His Job Earlier

Great news!

Like all of the "great news" that's come down the pike this week, the Administration has agreed to do something that they should have done in the first place, and only consented after getting some key concessions. Arlen Specter was jubilant that he got the White House to agree to a FISA review of the warrantless NSA wiretapping program, in a story that made me skeptical by the FIFTH word:

The White House has conditionally agreed to a court review of its controversial eavesdropping program, Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter said Thursday.

Specter said President Bush has agreed to sign legislation that would authorize the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to review the constitutionality of the National Security Agency’s most high-profile monitoring operations.

“You have here a recognition by the president that he does not have a blank check,” the Pennsylvania Republican told his committee.

Do you? I mean, the word "conditionally" is in the first sentence. According to Think Progress, the legislation is crafted in such a way that it gives the President the OPTION of submitting the program for judicial review. An option I'm sure he'll be falling all over himself to initiate. Um-hm. Specter says he has the President's "commitment" to do that. If he reneges, I'm sure the Senator from Pennsylvania will write him a strongly worded letter.

The President is already required by law to go to the FISA court and get a warrant for whatever spying and wiretapping inside the US he undertakes, within 15 days of said spying. This legislation giving him the "option" to do what is required of him actually weakens the initial law. Furthermore, as Glenn Greenwald and Atrios nicely amplify, this bill would provide amnesty for any illegalities committed by the executive branch SINCE 1978, essentially taking the Bush Administration off the hook for violating federal statutes, making such criminality legal. The FISA court would be ruling on the Constitutionality of warrantless wiretapping, not on whether "unitary executive power" trumps Congressional action. And they would only do it once, allowing future Presidents to skirt judicial review completely. What a nice parting gift.

The Democrats on the Judiciary committee are pretty circumspect:

Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, the committee’s senior Democrat, said Bush could submit the program to the court right now, if he wished. He called the potential legislation “an interesting bargain.”

“He’s saying, if you do every single thing I tell you to do, I’ll do what I should have done anyway,” Leahy said.

Oh, and then there's this affront to the legal system:

The administration official, who asked not to be identified because discussions are still ongoing, said the bill also would give the attorney general power to consolidate the 100 lawsuits filed against the surveillance operations into one case before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

Specter did not explain to his committee that detail, which is likely to raise the ire of civil liberties groups.

At a point where the Republican Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee has basically said there are more illegal programs out there that we don't even know about, this seems hardly the time to completely legalize executive lawbreaking over the illegal programs about which we do know. Not that Chairman Hoekstra's a hero; he's mainly unhappy because he wasn't told about the new stuff, not because he holds the rule of law in any kind of esteem.

The Democrats should not give in to this sham legislation and call the executive branch to account for their utter contempt for US law.