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Senator asks Gonzales to testify about spying

By wire services
Published January 9, 2006

WASHINGTON - The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said Sunday he has asked Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to testify publicly on the legality of warrantless eavesdropping on telephone conversations between suspected terrorists and people in the United States.

Asked on CBS's Face the Nation if Gonzales had agreed to appear, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said, "Well, I didn't ask him if he had agreed. I told him we were holding the hearings and he didn't object. I don't think he has a whole lot of choice on testifying."

Also Sunday, a prominent conservative on the committee said he is troubled by President Bush's pointing to the congressional resolution that authorized him to use force against Iraq as allowing him to order the program.

Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., said on ABC's This Week , "There was no discussion in anything that I was around that gave the president a broad surveillance authority with that resolution."

NEW ORLEANS - U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu is leading a delegation to the Netherlands today to study the flood control systems protecting a nation much farther below sea-level than New Orleans.

The Netherlands' ambassador invited Landrieu after Hurricane Katrina broke floodgates and levees, flooding most of New Orleans and all of neighboring St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes, she said.

The delegation includes political, business and education leaders.

The Netherlands recently completed a 50-year program to build dams, sea walls and surge barriers designed to protect the south of the country against almost any storm.

AGUILAR, Colo. - Wildfire outbreaks that have been menacing the dry southern plains across Texas and Oklahoma spread to Arkansas and Colorado on Sunday, where wind-whipped blazes destroyed at least nine homes and forced hundreds of people to evacuate, authorities said.

The evacuations in southern Colorado were forced by two fires that had destroyed five homes and burned at least 6,000 acres in Huerfano and Las Animas counties, not far from the New Mexico line.

In Arkansas, a 3,000-acre wildfire destroyed four homes Sunday east of Hamburg. Four volunteer fire departments were battling the blaze, and Deputy State Forester Larry Nance said it likely would be today before they could gain control. The cause of the fire, one of at least 35 reported in the state Sunday, was under investigation.

Arson was blamed for two small grass fires Sunday in Oklahoma that damaged two homes, said Oklahoma City battalion chief Kirk Wright.

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration has illegally stopped making public detailed tax enforcement data, which has been used to show which kinds of taxpayers get the most and toughest audits, a noted tax researcher says.

Syracuse University professor Susan B. Long said in papers filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle late last week that since Nov. 1, 2004, the IRS has violated a 1976 court order requiring the release of the data.

IRS spokesman Terry Lemons responded Friday, "We do not believe we are in violation of the court order."

Long, who has researched and written about federal tax administration for more than 30 years, used the Freedom of Information Act to win the court order in 1976 directing the revenue agency to provide her regularly with its data on criminal investigations, tax collections, the number and hours devoted to audits by income level and taxpayer category and other enforcement records.

HONOLULU - A skydiving instructor and a student from Japan died when their tandem parachute missed Oahu's Dillingham Airfield and landed in rough surf 300 yards from shore, authorities said.

Skydive Hawaii instructor Erich Mueller, 69, was declared dead after arriving at a hospital emergency room Friday, and student Saori Takahashi, 33, of Hokkaido, Japan, died later that night, the medical examiner's office said.

[Last modified January 9, 2006, 00:57:08]