Dems’ Dangerous FISA Game - The Editors



SIGN UP FOR FREE NRO NEWSLETTERS
SIGN UP FOR FREE NRO NEWSLETTERS			FEBRUARY 22, 2010, ISSUE \| VIEW COVER \| BUY THIS ISSUE \| SUBSCRIBE TO NR

Page Tools

TEXT RESIZE

Send to a Friend

Author RSS

Print Version

MOST-READ CONTENT

The Editors

divider

Author Archive | Latest

February 14, 2008 11:35 A.M.

Dems’ Dangerous FISA Game

1 | 2 | Next >

Here is the bottom line: The legal authority for the United States intelligence community to collect foreign intelligence — information that protects Americans from terrorist attacks and that our soldiers in harm’s way rely on to do their duty — will expire at midnight on Friday. And Democrats are perfectly willing to allow that to happen.

Not all of them, thankfully. A few responsible Democrats in the Senate have come together with Republicans and the White House on an intelligence overhaul. President Bush stresses the proposal’s growing bipartisan support, but no one should go up in a balloon over that. The very fact that it attracted such broad support from Senate Democrats — the same folks who have blocked sensible reform up until now, and who fought reauthorization for the Patriot Act tooth and nail — signals that our enthusiasm should be tempered. To call the proposal imperfect is to be charitable.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Nevertheless, the Senate bill does meet two critical objectives. First, it authorizes the NSA and the CIA to continue conducting surveillance on foreign enemies of the U.S. without seeking probable-cause judicial warrants. A warrant requirement for such monitoring outside our borders — which was expressly avoided when Congress initially enacted the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 1978 — would bring tens of thousands of enemy communications under FISA’s burdensome judicial procedures. Foreign intelligence-collection would slow to a crawl. Yet, that was just what a secret 2007 FISA court decision required. The Protect America Act reversed that ruling last summer, as a stopgap measure. But that authority runs out Saturday — which is why Congress must act.

Second, the Senate bill provides retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies that assisted the government in carrying out the NSA’s warrantless terrorist-surveillance program during the national-emergency conditions that obtained after 9/11. Contrary to critics’ claims, this immunity is not sweeping. It is appropriately limited: protecting from suit only providers who can show they either did not assist the program or assisted only on written assurance from the government that the program was legal.

1 | 2 | Next >