A closed-door caucus of House Democrats last Wednesday took a risky political course. By four to one, they instructed Speaker Nancy Pelosi to call President Bush’s bluff on extending the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to continue eavesdropping on suspected foreign terrorists. Rather than passing the bill with a minority of the House’s Democratic majority, Pelosi obeyed her caucus and left town for a 12-day recess without renewing the government’s eroding intelligence capability.

Pelosi could have exercised leadership prerogatives and called up the FISA bill to pass with unanimous Republican support. Instead, she refused to bring to the floor the bill approved overwhelmingly by the Senate. House Democratic opposition included left-wing members typified by Rep. Dennis Kucinich, but they are but a small faction. The true cause for blocking the bill was the Senate-passed retroactive immunity from lawsuits for private telecommunications firms asked to eavesdrop by the government. The nation’s torts bar, vigorously pursuing such suits, has spent months lobbying hard against immunity.

The recess by House Democrats amounts to a judgment that losing the generous support of trial lawyers, the Democratic Party’s most important financial base, is more dangerous than losing the anti-terrorist issue to Republicans. Dozens of lawsuits have been filed against the phone companies for giving personal information to intelligence agencies without a warrant. Adm. Mike McConnell, the nonpartisan director of national intelligence, says delay in congressional action deters cooperation in detecting terrorism.

Big money is involved. Amanda Carpenter, a Townhall.com columnist, has prepared a spreadsheet showing that 66 trial lawyers representing plaintiffs in the telecommunications suits have contributed $1.5 million to Democratic senators and causes. Of the 29 Democratic senators who voted against the FISA bill last Tuesday, 24 took money from the trial lawyers (as did two absent senators, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama). Eric A. Isaacson of San Diego, one of the telecommunications plaintiff’s lawyers, contributed to the recent unsuccessful presidential campaign of Sen. Chris Dodd, who led the Senate fight against the bill containing immunity.

The bill passed the Senate 68 to 29, with 19 Democrats voting aye. They included Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller and three senators who defeated Republican incumbents in the 2006 Democratic takeover of Congress: Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Jim Webb of Virginia and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island.

That opened the door for Pelosi to pass the bill with minority Democratic support. A Jan. 28 letter to the speaker signed by 21 House Blue Dogs (moderate Democrats) urged passage of Rockefeller’s bill containing immunity. Democrats supporting it could exceed 40 in a House vote, easy enough for passage.

Instead, the Democratic leadership Wednesday brought up another bill simply extending FISA authority, this one for 21 days. Republicans refused to go along because it did not provide phone companies with the necessary immunity. It still could have passed with support from Democrats only, and the leadership surely thought that would happen when it was brought to the floor Wednesday. But it failed, 229 to 191, with 34 Democrats voting no despite pleas for support from their leaders. The opponents included three congressmen who signed the letter to Pelosi advocating immunity from lawsuits, but most were Kucinich Democrats who intuitively vote against any anti-terrorist proposal.

Clearly, opposition to the Rockefeller bill shown in the subsequent House Democratic caucus derived less from Kucinich’s phobia to tough anti-terror countermeasures than obeisance to generous trial lawyers. Pelosi had to decide whether to pass the bill with a minority of her party, which can be dangerous for any leader of a House majority. In October 1998, Republican Speaker Newt Gingrich passed the Clinton administration’s budget with 30 percent Republican support, less than a month before GOP losses in midterm elections forced his resignation from Congress.

Nothing will be done until the House formally returns Feb. 25, and the adjournment resolution was constructed so that Bush cannot summon Congress back into session. Last Friday morning, debating two backbench Republicans on a nearly deserted House floor, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said there was no danger in letting the FISA legislation lapse temporarily. Democrats hope that will be the reaction of voters, as Republicans attack what happened last week.

From an article by Bob Novak at RealClearPolitics.com.

 

As a conservative Republican, I don't have a problem with this bill going away. If the government wants to spy on its citizens, then they can get a warrant for a phone tap and have it sealed by the judge. Want to defeat terrorism? Seal the damn borders and put in real airport security.

 

Bunny ever flown out of the country say to our buddy Israel even if you are a citizen of their country coming home from america you are damn near strip searched to get into the country. Why you ask simply they take secruity SERIOUSLY. The USA never took airport security serious even during the 80's when terriosts were starting to rise up it took 19 people taking over 4 airplan and flying 3 of the 4 into 3 buildings to get this country to even do anything about it. Yet I have flown since 9/11 3 times and all they do is ask you to take off your shoes and they have a list of banned things. Every other nation that we fly to requires all passengers coming from the US to rego thru security screenings once they get to their destination even Canada and Mexico.

 

I agree!!

 

Screw bashing one party over another…and screw the media!

Some appropriate quotes from "The Day the Earth Stood Still."
Klaatu: “I'm impatient with stupidity. My people have learned to live without it.”
Mr. Harley: ”I'm afraid my people haven't.”

Congress has had over 6 months to take care of this. The American people elect these politicians to office, and the blame needs to be evenly distributed. We have become a government of “politically correct” and our media (both liberal and conservative) fashions the outcome of our governmental policy…even elections.

In principle, though, conservatives who understand the Founding Fathers' distrust of monarchical government will always be skeptical of government power grabs. Those who understand the value of liberty over tyranny -- will always jealously guard their liberties.
I’m not for giving up essential liberty to obtain a level of safety, because some Terrorist wants to kill us. Men have died to protect our rights. Intercepting phone calls is a considerably less intrusive necessity. If it takes a little wire-tapping, then by all means please do so, and give immunity to the service providers. Only guilty and criminal people are afraid of this act. You still have your Fourth Amendment rights. The Constitution gives broad powers to the Executive in wartime. Exercising these broad powers is not an abandonment of Founding Principles, but rather an exercise of those specific principles. I do favor our highly paid and genius legal minds elected to office to do their job and find a solution. When they pander to the ignorant constituents, or the lobbyist, shame on them. Take their name down and vote them out of office. We deserve the government we elect!

The House bill would be a disaster for intelligence agencies. It would -- for the first time in American history -- impose a requirement to obtain a FISA court warrant to intercept communications of persons reasonably believed to be overseas. If any of them may be in contact with anyone in the United States, you have to get a warrant from the FISA court to listen in on his cell phone.

The biggest problem with this is the time lag. If you are a Soldier in the field, you need all the immediate intel you can gather...NOW...not 10 hours from now.
Another scenario would be an attack right here on our soil...again. Will that be what it takes to get people to wake up? We already know Washington only acts retroactively!

I guess we are reduced to a Nation of finger pointers...and only truly after the fact. We use to be a Nation of foresight and action.

 

I have no problems letting the “spy law” elapse. They should have simply extended it for say 90 days.
But, if the government wishes to spy on American citizens, then GET A WARRANT!! As REQUIRED by the LAW. I read that in the history of this “intelligence operation” only 4 times has the agency been denied a warrant. And this is out of 4000+ requests.
You want to “SECURE” America? STOP the flood of people coming in ILLEGALLY across our Southern border. STOP issuing “student visas” and “tourist visas” to virtually every Arab that wishes to come here. STOP issuing visas to Chinese “information” workers. Seems the gov’t now believes that there are more COMMUNIST CHINESE spies working in America than there ever were Russian spies in the entire “Cold War.“
But we all know this is all about MONEY! Money for the corporations for cheap labor and the universities getting large sums of “Tuition” money from rich oil countries “students.”
When their visas expire, round them up and throw them out!!
…………..
Last summer I flew from my home town to Kiev, Ukraine. Mistakenly I had a 3 inch pocket knife in my shaving kit which was thrown into my carry on luggage at the last minute. I made it through 3 security check points INSIDE the USA. The pocket knife was only discovered when departing from Ukraine, by Ukrainian security personnel.
You want secure airlines? Follow the Israeli’s example.
……………..
Bob Novak, isn’t he the conservative columnist that helped “out “ Valerie Flame, the CIA agent? Then refused to disclose his source and “Hid” behind his “rights.” Of course “Scooter” Libby, (was probably just the “fall guy”) VP Cheney’s Chief of Staff, was indicted, tried, found guilty, then pardoned.

 

Actually, roadhog, to the best of my understanding, when the first bill was passed last year, it was set up so that it would sunset, and the FISA law would revert to the original setup, which was that the government could tap just about anything, and get a warrant for it up to three days after the tapping took place. I don't see what's so difficult about that.

Personally, I don't trust the government to only tap the phones of people thought to be taking part in or supporting terrorist activities or groups.

 

Amen brother-if the bush administration was serious about securing this country, that border would of had a double walled fence a month after 9/11. And Mexican trucks cruising our freeways wouldnt of even been a consideration.

 

This from Rusty over at The Jawa Report:

The Supreme Court has effectively ruled that wiretapping suspected terrorists without a warrant is legal. Today they turned down an opportunity to overrule a lower court case which dismissed the ACLU’s lawsuit claiming that the so-called “domestic wiretapping” program–which really only monitored communications where at least one of those involved was in a foreign country–was illegal.

The lower court ruled against the ACLU because not one of their clients could show they had been harmed by the program. In fact, as far as I know not a single person, domestically, has been arrested or harassed as the result of the program. Since no one has been harmed by the program, there was no basis for the lawsuit. No harm, no foul.

In fact, none of the clients could show they had even been monitored.

This is not to say that the program hasn’t harmed people abroad. I hope it has. In fact, I’m betting that more than one or two terrorists now have their 72 virgins on account of an intercepted phone call or e-mail.

But the best part about today’s ruling? Buried in this Reuters article is this:

The administration abandoned the program about a year ago, putting it under the surveillance court that Congress created more than 30 years ago.

The high court’s action means that Bush will be able to disregard whatever legislative eavesdropping restrictions Congress adopts as there will be no meaningful judicial review, the ACLU attorneys said.

If the ACLU is correct, it means that the lapsing of the FISA law is no big deal. In fact, law enforcement may now have more ability to monitor terrorist activities because of the compromises included in the new law which give FISA courts much more power to oversee law-enforcement monitoring activities.

Maybe we don’t need this new FISA law after all. I wonder if the White House had been tipped as the to way the Court would rule, thus explaining why President Bush hasn’t called Congress back into session to push through the new legislation? I’m guessing, though, that today’s ruling will prompt Pelosi and company to act.

 

Do you seriously get your news from The Jawa Report? :roll: Jeez, I thought the guys on Fox News were off kilter, but The Jawa Report is over the top.