ACSBlog: The Blog of the American Constitution Society

White House press secretary Dana Perino said that because Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-VA) and ranking member Senator Kit Bond (R-MO) "showed a willingness" to amend FISA legislation to include immunity for telecommunications companies that provided consumer data to the National Security Agency, the Bush administration was "willing to show them some of the documents that they asked to see." The Senate Intelligence Committee approved amendments to FISA that included telecom immunity.

The Senate Judiciary Committee will also consider the legislation; Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and ranking member Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) wrote to President Bush conditioning "the production of information on prior Senate agreement to provide retroactivity immunity" is "unacceptable and would turn the legislative process upside down."

The letter noted that the administration still has not complied with subpoenas issued on June 27 for documents related to the wiretapping program's legal basis. Senator Feingold, who serves on both the Intelligence and Judiciary committees and has access to the documents, said the documents revealed "the absence of a legitimate justification under the law" for the program and constituted "an executive power grab."

Today, the White House turned over a few documents relating to warrantless wiretapping that were subpoenaed by the Senate Judiciary Committee. James Oliphant notes "at least one of those documents was fairly useless" because it is redacted, and Senator Leahy "wants more information about the administration’s stance toward abusive interrogation procedures"