The Nappy Cat Chronicles

After more than a year of heated political wrangling, the Senate handed the White House a major victory Tuesday by voting to broaden the government’s spy powers after giving legal protection to phone companies that cooperated in President Bush’s warrantless eavesdropping program.

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But supporters of the plan said the phone carriers acted out of patriotism after the Sept. 11 attacks in complying with what they believed in good faith was a legally binding order from the president.

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“This, I believe, is the right way to go for the security of the nation,” said Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, the West Virginia Democrat who leads the intelligence committee and who was a pivotal supporter of the White House-backed plan approved Tuesday.

The ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee wants N.F.L. Commissioner Roger Goodell to explain why the league destroyed evidence related to spying by the New England Patriots.

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When Mr. Specter was asked if he could envision a situation in which employees of the Patriots or the N.F.L. were called to testify before the committee, he said he wanted to take the investigation “one step at a time.”

“It could,” Mr. Specter said. “It’s premature to say whom we’re going to call or when. It starts with the commissioner. He had the tapes, and he made the decision as to what the punishment could be. He made the decision to destroy them.”

[photos courtesy of nytimes.com]