Tuesday 03 June 2008
by Ryan Singel, Wired
If elected president, Senator John McCain would reserve the right to run his own warrantless wiretapping program
against Americans, based on the theory that the president's wartime powers trump federal criminal statutes and court
oversight, according to a statement released by his campaign Monday.
McCain's new tack towards the Bush administration's theory of executive power comes some 10 days after a McCain
surrogate stated, incorrectly it seems, that the senator wanted hearings into telecom companies' cooperation with
President Bush's warrantless wiretapping program, before he'd support giving those companies retroactive legal immunity.
As first reported by Threat Level, Chuck Fish, a full-time lawyer for the McCain campaign, also said McCain wanted
stricter rules on how the nation's telecoms work with U.S. spy agencies, and expected those companies to apologize for
any lawbreaking before winning amnesty.
...snip...