On May 4, 6:18 pm, Geezer <o...@u.bk> wrote:

http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2009/04/specter_bills.html

Apr 27Specter Bills Seek to Rein In Executive Power

Secrecy Add comments Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) last week
reintroduced three bills that he said were needed to limit
presidential power and to restore the proper constitutional balance
among the three branches of government.

The first bill (S.875) would instruct courts not to rely on a
presidential signing statement when interpreting the meaning of any
statute. (Similar legislation was introduced in previous sessions of
Congress, but was not passed.)

President Bush used signing statements “in a way that threatened to
render the legislative process a virtual nullity, making it completely
unpredictable how certain laws will be enforced,” said Sen. Specter on
April 23. “As outrageous as these signing statements are,… it is even
more outrageous that Congress has done nothing to protect its
constitutional powers,” he said.

The second bill (S.876) would substitute the United States as the
defendant in place of telecommunications companies in pending lawsuits
alleging unlawful surveillance. (Sen. Specter also introduced such a
bill in 2008.)

“It is not too late to provide for judicial review of controversial
post-9/11 intelligence surveillance activities,” Sen. Specter said.
“The cases before Judge Vaughn Walker [alleging unlawful surveillance]
are still pending and, even if he were to dismiss them under the
statutory defenses dubbed ‘retroactive immunity’, Congress can and
should permit the cases to be refiled against the Government, standing
in the shoes of the carriers.”

“The legislation also establishes a limited waiver of sovereign
immunity… to prevent the Government from asserting immunity in the
event it is substituted for the current defendants,” Sen. Specter
explained. (As for the likelihood that the Government would assert the
“state secrets privilege” to abort such litigation, that is addressed
in another pending bill.)

The third bill (S.877), which is new, would require the Supreme Court
to review certain cases concerning the constitutionality of
intelligence surveillance, statutory immunity for telecommunications
providers, and other communications intelligence activities, and would
eliminate the Court’s discretion as to whether or not to grant
“certiorari.” The bill was necessitated, he said, by the Supreme
Court’s refusal to review an appeals court decision that overturned a
2006 ruling by Judge Anna Diggs Taylor which found the Terrorist
Surveillance Program to be unconstitutional.

Sen. Specter discussed his approach to these matters in “The Need to
Roll Back Presidential Power Grabs,” New York Review of Books, May 14,
2009.

...

WHILE TEHEE ARE VERY NEEDED BY THE CONSCIEUS LAWYERS
(MANY ROSE QUESTION TO THE LEGISLATURE IMEDIATELLY AFTER THE PATRIOT
ACT AND SPECTER CONTROLLED THEIR  PROPOSALS)

All,  you Specter, need to do that many years later is to leave my
office in Philadelphia that you annected in fully unconstitutional
way.

We  do have other phonies, in case.

LEAVE NOW!