Senate vote gives temporary boost to Bush's eavesdropping power

[nevadamedic]

Story Highlights

Senate OKs more power to eavesdrop on suspected foreign terrorists
House rejects Democratic version of bill, leaving its fate uncertain
White House applauds Senate vote, urges House to quickly follow suit
Senate Republicans said FISA update would ease national security concerns

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/08/03/fisa.upgrade.ap/index.html

Thank god........... We need to monitor these assholes that want to harm us. It's no surprise that the ACLU is pitcing a bitch fit because the Democrat's supported this.

[JohnDoe]

Senate ok'd a 6 months extention until new law can be writen and the House rejected it...no progress made?


Senate OKs more power to eavesdrop on suspected foreign terrorists
House rejects Democratic version of bill, leaving its fate uncertain

[red states rule]

Senate ok'd a 6 months extention until new law can be writen and the House rejected it...no progress made?

I find it amazing how libs feel terrorirts have the right to plan their attacks with the blessing of the Dems

Yes, the left wants to make sure that when they are captured their "rights" are not violated in the process

Now wonder the Dems pol numbers are tanking

[red states rule]

New York Times on FISA Reform
Ed Lasky
Over the last few days, there has been a lot of attention given to the fact that the FISA courts have prevented our nation from investigating communications between terrorism suspects who are overseas but whose communications travel through American owned communication networks. This is a major failing that Congress was alerted to, at the latest, in testimony given on May 1st.

Only now, when the media has publicized this security lapse, has Congress acted to close this loophole. The Times criticizes Congress for even considering these baby steps. The Times takes even Congressional Democrats to task:
"Yet, once again, President Bush has been trying to stampede Congress into a completely unnecessary expansion of his power to spy on Americans. And, hard as it is to believe, Congressional Republicans seem bent on collaborating, while Democrats (who can still be cowed by the White House’s with-us-or-against-us baiting) aren’t doing enough to stop it."
In the latest "have to read it to believe it" column "Stampeding Congress, Again", the paper hyperventilates:
Instead of asking Congress to address this anachronism, as it should, the White House sought to use it to destroy the 1978 spying law. It proposed giving the attorney general carte blanche to order eavesdropping on any international telephone calls or e-mail messages if he decided on his own that there was a “reasonable belief” that the target of the surveillance was outside the United States.

The attorney general’s decision would not be subject to court approval or any supervision. The White House, of course, insisted that Congress must do this right away, before the August recess that begins on Monday — the same false urgency it used to manipulate Congress into passing the Patriot Act without reading it and approving the appalling Military Commissions Act of 2006.
The paper calls this rush to close the loophole - "a false urgency". Recall, Congress has been aware of this problem since May1st-what urgency is Congress displaying? Then it engages in its normal paranoia regarding, not terrorists, but George Bush.
The administration and its Republican supporters in Congress argue that American intelligence is blinded by FISA and have seized on neatly timed warnings of heightened terrorist activity to scare everyone. It is vital for Americans, especially lawmakers, to resist that argument. It is pure propaganda.
Neatly timed terror warnings-I have not been aware of any heightened alerts being announced-there has been no public pronouncements regarding heightened risk alert levels. Where is the Times getting its news from-The Daily Kos?

Will the paper go to any lengths to help terrorists?
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2007/08/new_york_times_on_fisa_reform.html

[red states rule]

from the kooks over at Daily Kos

(posted for comic relief and to show you how the moonbats are reacting)


41 House Dems Tremble Before the Mighty Bush
by Meteor Blades
Sat Aug 04, 2007 at 09:19:43 PM PDT
Of the 41 House Democrats who voted today to roll over on the eavesdropping amendment that the White House demanded be added to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, 26 30 were Blue Dogs. The bill, Orwellianly named the Protect America Act, passed 227-183, with 181 Democrats and two Republicans opposed.

These are the Dems who ... failed us. Who failed our country.

Jason Altmire (4th Pennsylvania)
John Barrow (12th Georgia) Blue Dog
Melissa Bean (8th Illinois) Blue Dog
Dan Boren (2nd Oklahoma) Blue Dog
Leonard Boswell (3rd Iowa)
Allen Boyd (2nd Florida) Blue Dog
Christopher Carney (10th Pennsylvania) Blue Dog
Ben Chandler (6th Kentucky) Blue Dog
Rep. Jim Cooper (5th Tennessee) Blue Dog
Jim Costa (20th California) Blue Dog
Bud Cramer (5th Alabama) Blue Dog
Henry Cuellar (28th Texas)
Artur Davis (7th Alabama)
Lincoln Davis (4th Tennessee) Blue Dog
Joe Donnelly (2nd Indiana) Blue Dog
Chet Edwards (17th Texas)
Brad Ellsworth (8th Indiana) Blue Dog
Bob Etheridge (North Carolina)
Bart Gordon (6th Tennessee) Blue Dog
Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (South Dakota) Blue Dog
Brian Higgins (27th New York)
Baron Hill (9th Indiana) Blue Dog
Nick Lampson (23rd Texas) Blue Dog
Daniel Lipinski (3rd Illinois)
Jim Marshall (8th Georgia) Blue Dog
Jim Matheson (2nd Utah) Blue Dog
Mike McIntyre (7th North Carolina) Blue Dog
Charlie Melancon (3rd Louisiana) Blue Dog
Harry Mitchell (5th Arizona)
Colin Peterson (7th Minnesota) Blue Dog
Earl Pomeroy (North Dakota) Blue Dog
Ciro Rodriguez (23rd Texas) Blue Dog
Mike Ross (4th Arkansas) Blue Dog
John Salazar (3rd Colorado) Blue Dog
Heath Shuler (11th North Carolina) Blue Dog
Vic Snyder (2nd Arkansas)
Zachary Space (18th Ohio) Blue Dog
John Tanner (8th Tennessee) Blue Dog
Gene Taylor (4th Mississippi) Blue Dog
Timothy Walz (1st Minnesota)
Charles A. Wilson (6th Ohio) Blue Dog

As Marty Lederman at Balkination points out:

The key provision of S.1927 is new section 105A of FISA (see page 2), which categorically excludes from FISA's requirements any and all "surveillance directed at a person reasonably believed to be located outside of the United States."

For surveillance to come within this exemption, there is no requirement that it be conducted outside the U.S.; no requirement that the person at whom it is "directed" be an agent of a foreign power or in any way connected to terrorism or other wrongdoing; and no requirement that the surveillance does not also encompass communications of U.S. persons. Indeed, if read literally, it would exclude from FISA any surveillance that is in some sense "directed" both at persons overseas and at persons in the U.S.

The key term, obviously, is "directed at." The bill includes no definition of it.

Ellen Nakashima and Joby Warrick at the Washington Post reported:

The 227 to 183 House vote capped a high-pressure campaign by the White House to change the nation's wiretap law, in which the administration capitalized on Democrats' fears of being branded as weak on terrorism and on a general congressional desire to proceed with an August recess. ...

Privacy and civil liberties advocates, and many Democratic lawmakers, complained that the Bush administration's revisions to the law could breach constitutional protections against government intrusion. But the administration, aided by Republican congressional leaders, suggested that a failure to approve what intelligence officials sought could expose the country to a greater risk of terrorist attack. ...

"There are a lot of people who felt we had to pass something," said one angry Democratic lawmaker who requested anonymity, citing the sensitivity of caucus discussions. "It was tantamount to being railroaded."

In a sole substantial concession to Democrats, the administration agreed to a provision allowing the legislation to be reconsidered in six months. ...

Tonight, several Democrats said the bill would "eviscerate" the Fourth Amendment. Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) said that lawmakers were being "stampeded by fearmongering and deception" into voting for the bill. Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) warned the bill would lead to "potential unprecedented abuse of innocent Americans' privacy."

Carl Hulse and Edmund L. Andrews at The New York Times reported:

The House Democratic leadership had severe reservations about the proposal and an overwhelming majority of Democrats opposed it. Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the measure "does violence to the Constitution of the United States."

But with the Senate already in recess, Democrats confronted the choice of allowing the administration’s bill to reach the floor and be approved mainly by Republicans or letting it die.

If it stalled, that would have left Democratic lawmakers, who have long been anxious about appearing weak on national security issues, facing an August spent fending off charges from Mr. Bush and Republicans that they left Americans exposed to terrorism threats.

Despite the political risks, many Democrats argued they should stand firm against the president’s initiative, saying it granted the administration far too much latitude to initiate surveillance without judicial review. They said the White House was using the specter of terrorism to weaken the privacy rights of Americans and empower Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, an official Democrats say has proved himself untrustworthy.

"Legislation should not be passed in response to fear-mongering," said Representative Rush Holt, Democrat of New Jersey.

As the Cheney-Bush Administration regime has proved repeatedly to its great benefit and the nation's grave risk over the past six years, fear-mongering
works


http://www.dailykos.com/

[actsnoblemartin]

alright!. Screw the terrorists, and their so-called rights.


Story Highlights

Senate OKs more power to eavesdrop on suspected foreign terrorists
House rejects Democratic version of bill, leaving its fate uncertain
White House applauds Senate vote, urges House to quickly follow suit
Senate Republicans said FISA update would ease national security concerns

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/08/03/fisa.upgrade.ap/index.html

Thank god........... We need to monitor these assholes that want to harm us. It's no surprise that the ACLU is pitcing a bitch fit because the Democrat's supported this.

[red states rule]

alright!. Screw the terrorists, and their so-called rights.

Screw the left who wants to protect the rights of terrorists

[red states rule]

Well, it is done..........


Bush signs surveillance expansion
By S.A. Miller
August 6, 2007


President Bush yesterday signed into law an expansion of the government's power to eavesdrop on foreign terrorism suspects without the need for warrants.

The law, approved by the Senate and the House just before Congress adjourned for its summer break, was a priority for Mr. Bush, who signed the bill at Camp David.

"When our intelligence professionals have the legal tools to gather information about the intentions of our enemies, America is safer," he said.

The bill updates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA. It gives the government leeway to intercept, without warrants, communications between foreigners that are routed through equipment in United States, provided that "foreign intelligence information" is at stake.

The new law will expire in six months unless Congress renews it. The administration wanted the changes to be permanent.

Meanwhile, Democrats began Congress' August break today touting their legislative victories — including three of six top campaign promises — since assuming the majority in January.

Lawmakers worked overtime last week to pass the wiretapping bill and to add new ethics rules to the list of Democrats' promises fulfilled, along with raising the federal minimum wage and implementing the remaining September 11 commission recommendations.

Democrats' remaining "Six for '06" campaign promises include expanding access to health care, making college more affordable and shoring up the retirement system.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070806/NATION/108060067/1001

[red states rule]

and the liberal media is pissed


Warrantless Surrender
Congress is stampeded into another compromise of Americans' rights.
Monday, August 6, 2007; Page A16


THE DEMOCRATIC-led Congress, more concerned with protecting its political backside than with safeguarding the privacy of American citizens, left town early yesterday after caving in to administration demands that it allow warrantless surveillance of the phone calls and e-mails of American citizens, with scant judicial supervision and no reporting to Congress about how many communications are being intercepted. To call this legislation ill-considered is to give it too much credit: It was scarcely considered at all. Instead, it was strong-armed through both chambers by an administration that seized the opportunity to write its warrantless wiretapping program into law -- or, more precisely, to write it out from under any real legal restrictions.

Administration officials, backed up by their Republican enablers in Congress, argued that they were being dangerously hamstrung in their ability to collect foreign-to-foreign communications by suspected terrorists that happen to transit through the United States. The problem is that while no serious person objects to intercepting foreign-to-foreign communications, what the administration sought -- and what it managed to obtain -- allows much more than foreign-to-foreign contacts. The government will now be free to intercept any communications believed to be from outside the United States (including from Americans overseas) that involve "foreign intelligence" -- not just terrorism. It will be able to monitor phone calls and e-mails of U.S. citizens or residents without warrants -- unless the subject is the "primary target" of the surveillance. Instead of having the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court ensure that surveillance is being done properly, with monitoring of Americans minimized, that job would be up to the attorney general and the director of national intelligence. The court's role is reduced to that of rubber stamp

This is as reckless as it was unnecessary. Democrats had presented a compromise plan that would have permitted surveillance to proceed, but with court review and an audit by the Justice Department's inspector general, to be provided to Congress, about how many Americans had been surveilled. Democrats could have stuck to their guns and insisted on their version. Instead, nervous about being blamed for any terrorist attack and eager to get out of town, they accepted the unacceptable. Most Democrats opposed the measure, but enough (16 in the Senate, 41 in the House) went with Republicans to allow it to pass, and the leadership enabled that result.

There is one small saving grace here: These sweeping new powers expire after six months. Of course, having dropped the audit requirement, lawmakers won't have a good way of knowing how many Americans had their communications intercepted. The administration will no doubt again play the national security card. Democratic leaders say they want to move quickly to fix the damage. If only we could be more confident that they won't get rolled again.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/05/AR2007080501050.html

[red states rule]

The NY Times is ready to cry.........


Bush Signs Law to Widen Legal Reach for Wiretapping

WASHINGTON, Aug. 5 — President Bush signed into law on Sunday legislation that broadly expanded the government’s authority to eavesdrop on the international telephone calls and e-mail messages of American citizens without warrants.

Congressional aides and others familiar with the details of the law said that its impact went far beyond the small fixes that administration officials had said were needed to gather information about foreign terrorists. They said seemingly subtle changes in legislative language would sharply alter the legal limits on the government’s ability to monitor millions of phone calls and e-mail messages going in and out of the United States.

They also said that the new law for the first time provided a legal framework for much of the surveillance without warrants that was being conducted in secret by the National Security Agency and outside the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the 1978 law that is supposed to regulate the way the government can listen to the private communications of American citizens.

“This more or less legalizes the N.S.A. program,” said Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies in Washington, who has studied the new legislation.

Previously, the government needed search warrants approved by a special intelligence court to eavesdrop on telephone conversations, e-mail messages and other electronic communications between individuals inside the United States and people overseas, if the government conducted the surveillance inside the United States.

Today, most international telephone conversations to and from the United States are conducted over fiber-optic cables, and the most efficient way for the government to eavesdrop on them is to latch on to giant telecommunications switches located in the United States.

By changing the legal definition of what is considered “electronic surveillance,” the new law allows the government to eavesdrop on those conversations without warrants — latching on to those giant switches — as long as the target of the government’s surveillance is “reasonably believed” to be overseas.

For example, if a person in Indianapolis calls someone in London, the National Security Agency can eavesdrop on that conversation without a warrant, as long as the N.S.A.’s target is the person in London.

Tony Fratto, a White House spokesman, said Sunday in an interview that the new law went beyond fixing the foreign-to-foreign problem, potentially allowing the government to listen to Americans calling overseas.

But he stressed that the objective of the new law is to give the government greater flexibility in focusing on foreign suspects overseas, not to go after Americans.

“It’s foreign, that’s the point,” Mr. Fratto said. “What you want to make sure is that you are getting the foreign target.”

The legislation to change the surveillance act was rushed through both the House and Senate in the last days before the August recess began.

The White House’s push for the change was driven in part by a still-classified ruling earlier this year by the special intelligence court, which said the government needed to seek court-approved warrants to monitor those international calls going through American switches.

The new law, which is intended as a stopgap and expires in six months, also represents a power shift in terms of the oversight and regulation of government surveillance.

The new law gives the attorney general and the director of national intelligence the power to approve the international surveillance, rather than the special intelligence court. The court’s only role will be to review and approve the procedures used by the government in the surveillance after it has been conducted. It will not scrutinize the cases of the individuals being monitored.

The law also gave the administration greater power to force telecommunications companies to cooperate with such spying operations. The companies can now be compelled to cooperate by orders from the attorney general and the director of national intelligence.

Democratic Congressional aides said Sunday that some telecommunications company officials had told Congressional leaders that they were unhappy with that provision in the bill and might challenge the new law in court. The aides said the telecommunications companies had told lawmakers that they would rather have a court-approved warrant ordering them to comply.

In fact, pressure from the telecommunications companies on the Bush administration has apparently played a major hidden role in the political battle over the surveillance issue over the past few months.

In January, the administration placed the N.S.A.’s warrantless wiretapping program under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and subjected it for the first time to the scrutiny of the FISA court.

Democratic Congressional aides said Sunday that they believed that pressure from major telecommunications companies on the White House was a major factor in persuading the Bush administration to do that. Those companies were facing major lawsuits for having secretly cooperated with the warrantless wiretapping program, and now wanted greater legal protections before cooperating further.

But the change suddenly swamped the court with an enormous volume of search warrant applications, leading, in turn, to the administration’s decision to seek the new legislation

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/06/washington/06nsa.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1186395839-QmjyemIsRptpDQiG6pG1cg

[red states rule]

Story Highlights

Senate OKs more power to eavesdrop on suspected foreign terrorists
House rejects Democratic version of bill, leaving its fate uncertain
White House applauds Senate vote, urges House to quickly follow suit
Senate Republicans said FISA update would ease national security concerns

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/08/03/fisa.upgrade.ap/index.html

Thank god........... We need to monitor these assholes that want to harm us. It's no surprise that the ACLU is pitcing a bitch fit because the Democrat's supported this.

Same Agencies to Run, Oversee Surveillance Program

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 7, 2007; Page A02

The Bush administration plans to leave oversight of its expanded foreign eavesdropping program to the same government officials who supervise the surveillance activities and to the intelligence personnel who carry them out, senior government officials said yesterday.

The law, which permits intercepting Americans' calls and e-mails without a warrant if the communications involve overseas transmission, gives Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales responsibility for creating the broad procedures determining whose telephone calls and e-mails are collected. It also gives McConnell and Gonzales the role of assessing compliance with those procedures.

The law, signed Sunday by President Bush after being pushed through the Senate and House over the weekend, does not contain provisions for outside oversight -- unlike an earlier House measure that called for audits every 60 days by the Justice Department's inspector general.

In a conference call with reporters yesterday, officials familiar with the program said they had not worked out all the details of internal oversight, noting that the law was only a day old. But the officials, who spoke to reporters on the condition that they not be identified, said surveillance activities would require a sworn certificate and affidavit, which would be reviewed for accuracy by inspectors general from the Justice Department or intelligence agencies.

Congress would be briefed on the activities, said the officials, who noted that the House and Senate intelligence committees have been given repeated classified briefings on the controversial eavesdropping program, commonly referred to as the terrorist surveillance program. "We're going to want to make sure the committees are kept informed," one official said.

The controversial changes to the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act were approved by both chambers of the Democratic-controlled Congress despite privacy concerns raised by Democratic leaders and civil liberties advocacy groups. The measure must be renewed in 180 days or the changes will expire.

Central to the new program is the collection of foreign intelligence from "communication service providers," which the officials declined to identify, citing secrecy concerns. During congressional debates last week, however, both Republicans and Democrats referred to global communication networks that route foreign phone calls and e-mails through wires, cables and switching stations owned by U.S. companies and located on U.S. soil.

Under the new law, the attorney general is required to draw up the governing procedures for surveillance activity, for approval by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which supervises the warrantless collection of eavesdropping inside the United States when it involves foreign intelligence.

Once the procedures are established, the attorney general and director of national intelligence will formally certify that the collection of data is authorized -- a determination based on affidavits from intelligence officials. But the certification will be placed under seal "unless the certification is necessary to determine the legality of the acquisition," according to the law signed by Bush.

It is left to the director of national intelligence and the attorney general to "assess compliance with such procedures" and report their assessments to the House and Senate intelligence panels, the statute states.

Gonzalez is also required to provide semiannual reports to the House and Senate intelligence and Judiciary committees, which are to include any accounts of abuse or noncompliance that Justice and intelligence officials discover in their internal reviews.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/06/AR2007080601303.html?hpid%3Dmoreheadlines&sub=AR