Will Democrats Move On FISA Changes?
Democrats have decided that they have to support changes requested by the White House to the FISA law in order to protect vital national-security programs, the New York Times reports. They fear leaving themselves open to charges of being weak on terrorism as well as impeding vital signal intelligence efforts to keep the nation safe from another attack (via Memeorandum):
Under pressure from President Bush, Democratic leaders in Congress are scrambling to pass legislation this week to expand the government’s electronic wiretapping powers.Democratic leaders have expressed a new willingness to work with the White House to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to make it easier for the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on some purely foreign telephone calls and e-mail. Such a step now requires court approval. ...
In the past few days, Mr. Bush and Mike McConnell, director of national intelligence, have publicly called on Congress to make the change before its August recess, which could begin this weekend. Democrats appear to be worried that if they block such legislation, the White House will depict them as being weak on terrorism.
The Bush administration didn't just start calling for movement in the last few days. They agreed to place these efforts back under the supervision of the FISA court in January on the promise that the Democratic-controlled Congress would take action on these requests months ago. Instead, the Democratic leadership put them on the back burner while taking 108 days to authorize funding for the troops in Iraq and spending hundreds of hours on oversight hearings.
Now that the August recess approaches, the White House and the Directorate of National Intelligence wants some action. They have pressed Congress hard to take care of the nation's business sometime in between hysterical committee hearings and strategizing for surrender in Iraq. Given that this has been sitting on their desks for seven months with no action at all, the impatience seems particularly justified, especially considering the recent news of a serious uptick in terrorist communications.
The ACLU and other groups oppose the change in FISA, but all it does is rectify a technical problem that keeps the NSA from its core mission of monitoring foreign communications. Thanks to globalization and the power of American technology, carriers in the US now handle traffic that neither originates or destinates in the US. Unfortunately, current law requires the NSA to get a search warrant for traffic that passes through American switches regardless of origin or destination -- legislation crafted when American switches handled only American traffic. It will allow the NSA to operate more quickly to find and decode foreign traffic that passes through our systems, but not change the requirements for American traffic at all.
That seems like a very reasonable request, and one that should not take seven months to understand and process, especially in a time of war. It's hard to connect dots when Congress won't let the NSA find them.
Posted by Ed Morrissey on August 1, 2007 7:42 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (2)
Comments (4)
Posted by Phil | August 1, 2007 8:42 AM
This is quite simple. As we get closer to 08 Dems have to mask themselves again on national security. Time to appear tough so they can win the White House and. once in power, go back to being the kos surrender monkeys thay they really are. In other words, they can't be their true selves until AFTER the general election.
Posted by Continuum | August 1, 2007 8:57 AM
The Bush Admin has proven to be both incompetent and corrupt.
The FISA Court is just a rubber stamp.
Why give more power to these Keystone Cops?
Posted by Neo | August 1, 2007 9:26 AM
Stuff like this sounds really warm and fuzzy ..
Democratic leaders have expressed a new willingness to work with the White House to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to make it easier for the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on some purely foreign telephone calls and e-mail. Such a step now requires court approval.
.. but meanwhile back at the ranch, somebody is speaking with forked-tongue ..
House Democrats canceled Tuesday’s planned hearing with Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, prompting a rebuke from Republicans who want Congress to proceed quickly on updating a key surveillance law.
So is somebody going to tell me that they just don't need to hearing the DNI or is it that they just don't like the letter that the DNI sent to Arlen Specter.
My BS-meter is pegged.
Posted by Palamas | August 1, 2007 3:50 PM
Continuum, do you ever bother to read the posts before you bloviate?