Republican Sens. John McCain of Arizona, John Warner of Virginia and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina have drawn headlines and justified praise for standing up to the White House on the issue of military tribunals for suspected al-Qaida terrorists being held at Guantanamo Bay. President Bush wants the tribunals to have extraordinary powers, including the right to keep the accused from viewing the evidence against him. The senators rightly objected, on the grounds that such tribunals would insult this nation's principle of justice for all.
Regrettably, Republican senators are not nearly as inclined to stand up to Mr. Bush on the issue of domestic spying without having obtained a legally required warrant. Indeed, even as public attention is focused on Guantanamo, the Senate has rushed through two bills giving the White House broad powers to wiretap citizens' phone calls and spy on their e-mails, as well as to imprison Americans without charge for indefinite periods.

Bob Barr, the former conservative Republican congressman from Georgia, who now heads a watchdog group called Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances, warns that these bills would violate the Fourth and Fifth amendments to the Constitution. That is not hyperbole. It is a disturbing fact.

The bills are being sponsored by Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio. Not that long ago, Sen. Specter was talking tough about warrantless eavesdropping and vowing to prevent abuses of privacy and free speech. But the legislation he finally crafted, in cooperation with the White House, amounts to a blank check for Mr. Bush. Likewise, Sen. DeWine would give the White House what it wants by taking power over the surveillance program away from the secret court established under the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act, and leaving oversight to Congress.

No one is suggesting that electronic monitoring be abandoned. To the contrary, it is an essential weapon in the war on terror. But the legal guidelines for electronic surveillance has long been clear: The government needs to first go to the FISA court and obtain a warrant.
A bill sponsored by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., would preserve this essential check on executive power by maintaining the current FISA process, while giving the government greater latitude in meeting warrant deadlines -- a recognition that rapidly changing technology has made it difficult to obtain warrants every time it tracks a suspected terrorist. The bill also calls for robust congressional checks on how the process is working, and whether it is being abused.
To his credit, Sen. Specter has co-sponsored the bill with Sen. Feinstein, even though it runs counter to his own legislation. That gives the full Senate a clear choice: It can protect basic liberties, as the Feinstein bill would do, or it can hand terrorists a victory by voting to substantially diminish them.