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Specter criticizes administration on civil liberties |
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By J. Taylor Rushing
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Posted: 06/09/08 03:06 PM [ET] |
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Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) continued his sharp criticism of the Bush administration’s record on protecting civil liberties in remarks before the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on Monday. Specter said that the Justice Department has established procedures that dampen legal rights; that Bush has used signing statements to evade congressional directives; and that administration officials have shut Congress out of federal intelligence decisions. The administration has also erred by pushing for retroactive legal immunity for telephone companies for turning over Americans' private data, Specter said. An impasse over that issue is the chief reason Congress has rejected renewing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. "Seems to me it's very difficult to give retroactive immunity when you don't even know for sure what you're giving retroactive immunity for," he said. "It's very uncertain what will happen." Specter, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee and a former eight-year district attorney in Philadelphia, addressed the ACLU's 2008 membership conference at the Washington Convention Center. The senator on Monday also promoted two pieces of legislation that he is pushing in the Senate: one that would create a legal privilege for reporters to withhold information in some cases, and another that would extend free-speech protections to reporters who face libel suits in foreign courts. He said he is "proud to be on the same side" as the ACLU in favoring both initiatives, noting that he visited former New York Times reporter Judith Miller during her 85-day prison sentence in 2005 for refusing to testify before a federal grand jury investigating the Valerie Plame case. |
