Which Side Are They On?

With the disaster in Minneapolis dominating the news, this article in the NYTimes may have been overlooked, Democrats Scrambling to Expand Eavesdropping:

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.

It would be the first change in the law since the Bush administration’s program of wiretapping without warrants became public in December 2005.

* * * *

Democrats appear to be worried that if they block such legislation, the White House will depict them as being weak on terrorism.

* * * *

Under the program of wiretapping without warrants, which began soon after the Sept. 11 attacks, the N.S.A. eavesdropped on the transit traffic without seeking court approval. But in January, the administration placed the program back under the FISA law, which meant warrants were required for surveillance of the transit traffic.

* * * *

One obstacle to a deal this week is a disagreement between Democrats and the White House over how to audit the wiretapping of the foreign-to-foreign calls going through switches in the United States.

The Democrats have proposed that the eavesdropping be reviewed by the secret FISA court to make sure that it has not ensnared any Americans.

The administration has proposed that the attorney general perform the review, but Democrats are unwilling to give that kind of authority to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, who is under fire for what some lawmakers describe as his misleading testimony about the dismissals of federal prosecutors and the wiretapping program.

WTF?? Reading something like this makes you despair that we can correct the abuse and corruption of our system of government that has been implemented by the Bush Administration. Despite the daily disclosures of the civil liberty abuses by the Administration, the Democrats are considering a change to FISA to expand spying activities by that Administration and to put the Attorney General (yes, that Alberto Gonzales) in charge?? For an excellent piece on the scope of the surveillance efforts, see Wired's Threat Level.

In the words of Atrois -- "What Digby Says," who observes in Reflexive Fear of Wimpification:

Let's set aside the idea that 'trusting' the Bush administration with warrantless wiretaps is like trusting your four year old with a zippo lighter, what kind of bucket-of-lukewarm-spit kind of politics is this? What are they afraid of, that the Bush administration will blame them if a terrorist attack occurs and they didn't approve another blank check? Guess what? It wouldn't matter if the Democrats named Bush king with the power to draw and quarter hippies and Muslims on the white house lawn, they will still blame the Democrats if there is another terrorist attack.

As mcjoan of Daily Kos explained, FISA "Reform": What's the Rush?:

The administration and Republicans on Capitol Hill are launching a new onslaught against our civil rights, attempting to leverage Chertoff's "gut feeling" into a vague and as yet undefined "new threat" that may or may not occur this summer, all in attempt to get a bill passed this week making significant and unwarranted changes to FISA. Another likely motivation is to try to take some of the heat off of Gonzales and distract the House Judiciary Committee from considering beginning an investigation into his impeachment.

* * * *

According to the national security experts at the ACLU, what they are really looking for is getting at Americans' conversations without a warrant. The White House wants to be able to intercept any conversations -- both e-mails and phone calls -- between a foreign target and any U.S. person so long as their "primary purpose" is not obtaining the U.S. person's conversations. If their purpose is significantly, or substantially to obtain those U.S. persons' calls, the NSA would be able to intercept and retain those calls with impunity.

The administration is also pushing for a provision that would give immunity - from criminal prosecution as well as civil liability - for the telecom companies' participation in any future warrantless wiretapping program.

Of course, the real reason for the rush was revealed today. Citing this Washington Post article, Ruling Limited Spying Efforts, TPM notes, in What a Mess:

According to the Post, the reason for the administration's feverish effort to get legislation to expand its surveillance powers under FISA is that earlier this year a FISA Court judge declared a key portion of the administration's program illegal. The ruling of course was secret. And it seems that until now the White House had kept this information hidden form Congress.

Not surprisingly, the Administration's activities were illegal, as Post reports:

The judge, whose name could not be learned, concluded early this year that the government had overstepped its authority in attempting to broadly surveil communications between two locations overseas that are passed through routing stations in the United States, according to two other government sources familiar with the decision.

The decision was both a political and practical blow to the administration, which had long held that all of the National Security Agency's enhanced surveillance efforts since 2001 were legal. The administration for years had declined to subject those efforts to the jurisdiction of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, and after it finally did so in January the court ruled that the administration's legal judgment was at least partly wrong.

So the Republicans disregard our constitutional rights and the Democrats rush to try to fix the problem, so they can legally spy on us?

I have often referred to the dysfunctional behavior of the Democrats as emblematic of a battered spouse. Susie Madrak of Suburban Guerrilla echoes that thought, Are These People Crazy?

I finally get it - the Democratic Congress is the classic co-dependent of a drunken wifebeater. If only she cooks his favorite meal, keeps the house spotless, makes sure the kids are quiet and anticipates and avoids EVERY SINGLE ONE of his buttons, it’ll all be fine…

Tags: Civil Liberties, Law, Politics, FISA, Spying