ALL THEY WANT IS WHAT IRAN WANTS...

Wiretap Bill Moves Closer to Passage: After Changes, Senate Holdouts Pledge Support (Jonathan Weisman, 9/26/06, Washington Post)

Last-minute changes to legislation authorizing the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping program have won the support of three balking Senate Republicans, improving the chances that a bill expanding the Bush administration's surveillance authority will pass Congress this week.

The Senate Judiciary Committee approved a bill this month that would allow, but not require, the administration to submit its warrantless wiretapping program to a secret national security court for constitutional review. But three Republicans who last year helped delay the renewal of the USA Patriot Act -- Sens. Larry E. Craig (Idaho), John E. Sununu (N.H.) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) -- combined forces again to express strong misgivings about the bill's implications for civil liberties.

The senators announced yesterday that those concerns had been met by three changes to the bill, although critics said the changes would not have the impact that the lawmakers claimed.

...to be able to surrender gracefully.

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 26, 2006 1:28 PM