Terrorist Surveillance Program

FISA, Terrorist Surveillance Program

New York Daily News says NY House Dems ‘Let NY Down’

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Retired New York firefighter John Gilleeny alerted me to today’s editorial in the New York Daily News. There, they berated New York’s Democrats in the House for their failure to support the Senate’s version of legislation to allow our intelligence services to electronically eavesdrop on the enemy. The Daily News named names:

Some say these limitations are minor — merely a bit of added paperwork. We disagree. Nothing that crimps national security when lives are potentially at stake — New York lives, at that — can be shrugged off.

What’s worse is that there’s no remotely valid reason for it.

By a big bipartisan majority, the Senate okayed a measure to extend foreign electronic eavesdropping under reasonable court supervision. But House Democrats balked, largely because the bill granted immunity from lawsuits to telecom companies that responded to government requests for information in the post-9/11 crisis.

Allowing these firms to be sued for complying with government directives aimed at preventing a second attack would be a travesty. And denying the U.S. full protection over the issue is all the more outrageous.

Some of New York’s Democratic delegation refused to extend the eavesdropping legislation because they insist the telecom companies should be subject to suit. Others say they oppose the bill on the ground that it permits warrantless wiretapping. The latter have truly gone off the deep end.

The roll of dishonor is as follows: Charles Rangel, Carolyn Maloney and Jerry Nadler of Manhattan; Nydia Velazquez, Edolphus Towns and Yvette Clarke of Brooklyn; Joseph Crowley, Gary Ackerman, Gregory Meeks and Anthony Weiner of Queens, and Eliot Engel, Jose Serrano and Nita Lowey of the Bronx.

All voted against legislation in August or said they oppose it now. They are doing constituents, the city and the nation a terrible disservice.

mainstream media, Political wind, Terrorist Surveillance Program

House may vote soon on terrorist surveillance renewal

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Today, the Associated Press is either confused or deliberately misleading its readers:

The chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence expects a compromise soon on renewal of an eavesdropping law that could provide legal protections for telecommunications companies as President Bush has insisted. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, in a television interview broadcast yesterday, did not say specifically whether the House proposal would mirror the Senate’s version. The Senate measure provides retroactive legal immunity to the companies that helped the government wiretap U.S. computer and phone lines after the September 11 attacks without clearance from a secret court.
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The eavesdropping law makes it easier for the government to spy on foreign phone calls and e-mails that pass through the United States. Congress did not renew the law before it expired Feb. 16. Mr. Bush opposed a temporary extension and has warned that failure to renew the law would put the nation at greater risk.

House Democrats worried that the legal protections would erode civil liberties and accused Mr. Bush of fear-mongering. A quirk in the temporary eavesdropping law adopted by Congress in August allows the government to initiate wiretaps for up to one year against a wide range of targets.

No “quirk” in the law allows the government to “initiate wiretaps … against a wide range of targets.” Only those targets known to exist prior to the law’s expiration may continue to be monitored.

House Speaker Pelosi’s FISA negligence endangers our troops.