truthy or facty?

An OpEd bit in the NYT today: Arlen Specter responding to an editorial:

To the Editor:

I take issue with your March 6 editorial "Kabuki Congress" when it says that my bill "grants legal cover, retroactively, to the one spying program that Mr. Bush has acknowledged" and that it "covers any other illegal wiretapping we don't know about."

My public statements have emphasized the proposition that the wiretapping flatly violates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires court approval.

I have reserved judgment on whether the president has Article II inherent power, which would trump the FISA statute, because I don't know what the program is, and the administration will not tell us.

My bill calls upon the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which has the expertise and is leak-proof (unlike either Congress or the White House) to determine the program's constitutionality. My bill specifically does not grant "legal cover" to the wiretapping and leaves that judgment to the FISA Court.

Arlen Specter
Chairman
Senate Judiciary Committee
Washington, March 6, 2006