The YK conference distracted me from the recent FISA bill, so instead of writing something in-depth, I’ll point you to this New York Times editorial and to Glenn’s place. Glenn does a fantastic job, so I’d recommend scrolling down and reading pretty much his entire front page. From the Times editorial:
The votes in the House and Senate were supposed to fix a genuine glitch in the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires the government to obtain a warrant before eavesdropping on electronic communications that involve someone in the United States. The court charged with enforcing that law said the government must also seek a warrant if the people are outside the country, but their communications are routed through data exchanges here — a technological problem that did not exist in 1978.
Instead of just fixing that glitch, the White House and its allies on Capitol Hill railroaded Congress into voting a vast expansion of the president’s powers. They gave the director of national intelligence and the attorney general authority to intercept — without warrant, court supervision or accountability — any telephone call or e-mail message that moves in, out of or through the United States as long as there is a “reasonable belief” that one party is not in the United States. The new law all but eviscerates the 1978 law. The only small saving grace is that the new statute expires in six months.
The Democrats caved on this one. This is a substantial violation of our civil liberties, and it’s pathetic that they would let it pass.
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Except the thing is that the bill was sold (“even the liberal NPR” sold it thusly) as merely a fix in the law. Whether the fix was needed is another question … the problem is that the media, including as far as I can tell the NY Times, didn’t get out the truth of what the bill really did.
The NY Times editorial is right about the Dems. involved. But their newspaper is just as much a part of the problem. I know that’s no longer shameless self-promotion Sunday, but since it is on topic, I figure I can point out that I blogged about this a bit, here.
The Dems have caved on numerous things…this is just the latest. I guess one can’t be seen as being “soft on terrorism” (whatever the f— that really means) these days and hope to stay in office. But how about being worried about being seen as “soft on the loss of civil rights”? Too much to hope for?
“dropped the ball” and “caved.”
HA!
More like abdicating their responsibility to the citizens of this country.
I’m not sure what’s worse: the party taking away all our rights, or the party sitting on the sidelines and letting it happen like a group of idiots.
Haven’t you realized there is only one Dempublican party, and that its ideology is a lot closer to the right than it is to the left?