During a stop in Iowa today (Friday), the Republican leader in the U.S. Senate predicted a higher court will overturn a federal judge’s ruling that the government’s wiretapping program is unconstitutional. The Bush Administration is monitoring the activities of suspected terrorists without obtaining a court order, or warrant, first.
Tennesee Senator Bill Frist says the judge’s ruling is wrong. “I disagree with the decision wholeheartedly…I expect it to be overturned,” Frist says. Frist contends the wiretap program is legal because it’s in the national interest to protect Americans, and track down terrorists, in a time of war.
Frist says he’s been privately briefed many times about the terror surveillance. “It is saving the lives of Americans each and every day,” he says. Frist says you need look no further than the discovery of a plot to blow up planes from Britain bound for the U.S. to see the value of such clandestine work.
“Those very tools were used to prevent the death of as many as 3,000 Americans,” Frist says. “Those are the sort of tools that we absolutely must have.” British intelligence uncovered the plot to blow up as many as a dozen airplanes. Frist is in Iowa today (Friday) campaigning with Republicans running for the state legislature and for congress. Frist, a surgeon turned politician, is pondering a bid for the G-O-P’s presidential nomination in 2008.