Congressman Pushes Back on Administration's Dangerous Spying Bill: "

Fresh off announcing hearings on the NSA spying program, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes authored this Washington Post editorial criticizing the Administration and rebutting its call for expanded surveillance powers.

'The congressional testimony this month by former deputy attorney general James Comey called into question the accuracy of everything I had heard before about the so-called Terrorist Surveillance Program. According to Comey, in the spring of 2004 President Bush authorized a program of domestic surveillance even though his acting attorney general was so concerned about the surveillance that he could not in good faith 'certify its legality.'

'That the program didn't comply with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was not a shock. We have known that fact since the program's existence was disclosed in December 2005. What was shocking was the amount of dissent, even within the president's own Justice Department, about the perils of ignoring FISA.'

Read the whole thing here.

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(Read Original Article - Via EFF: Deep Links.)