Specter: Time to contract executive powers

WASHINGTON, July 8 (UPI) -- U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., says it's time to rein in the expansion of executive powers, saying the Constitution doesn't give the president "supremacy."

Commenting on the claims of executive powers President George Bush has expanded since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist strikes, Specter told WAMU radio, "it's time Congress declared its own independence from this executive expansion."

"(The) Constitution was not designed to give the president supremacy," he told the Washington radio station.

The ranking Republican member on the Senate Judiciary Committee also discussed the bipartisan overhaul of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Specter is sponsoring two of three amendments to the legislation that will be heard tomorrow.

Specter said he is concerned about granting retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that complied with the federal government's warrantless search requests.

"(It) seems to me very hard to give retroactive immunity when most members of Congress have not been briefed and don't know what the program is," Specter said. "All we have are allegations about what the telephone companies are supposed to have done."

If the measure passes without amendments, Specter said he would support passage "only because of the superseding importance of preventing another terrorist attack."