Friday, December 22, 2006

NBC ignores reality, also

NBC's Kelly O'Donnell: "Congress has not passed a specific law" on Bush wiretap program

In reporting on President Bush's "argu[ment]" that "he had legal authority" to order warrantless domestic wiretapping, NBC News White House correspondent Kelly O'Donnell in a December 20 online article uncritically repeated the Bush administration's false claim that "Congress had not passed a specific law" on the subject.

In fact, as has been widely reported and as Media Matters for America has repeatedly noted, Congress has passed such a law: the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA), which requires the government to obtain a warrant to wiretap U.S. citizens and legal residents inside the United States. The Bush administration's apparent violation of FISA has given rise to bipartisan condemnation.

(Media Matters)