Leahy to Subpoena Warrantless Wiretapping Documents
Subpoenas will be issued for surveillance documents related to wiretapping and electronic surveillance, a Senate Judiciary Committee vote determined Thursday. The committee voted 13-3 to authorize Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., in consultation with ranking member Arlen Specter, R-Pa., to issue subpoenas to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and the executive office records custodian for “all documents related to the Committee’s investigation into the Administration’s operation of a warrantless domestic surveillance program outside of the provisions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and its legal analysis for this program.” Republicans Specter and Sens. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, supported the authorization, along with all Democratic committee members.
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Disclosure of warrantless wiretapping documents is long overdue, Leahy said, citing an absence of response from Gonzales and other administration members to the committee’s previous information requests. The administration’s “stonewalling is unacceptable and must end,” he said: “If the administration will not carry out its responsibility to provide information to this committee without a subpoena, we will issue one.”
Digital liberties groups supported the decision. “This subpoena authorization is a critical first step toward uncovering the full extent of the NSA’s illegal spying and the role that telecommunications companies like AT&T played in it,” said Electronic Frontier Foundation attorney Kevin Bankston: “These subpoenas are long overdue.” The Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) agreed: “The administration is seeking to rewrite the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to legalize warrantless wiretapping of Americans who communicate with people abroad or with foreign embassies and related entities in the [United States].”