House Inaction Left America Open To Attack
By SENATOR MITCH McCONNELL | Posted Monday, February 25, 2008 4:30 PM PT
In the wake of 9/11, Americans were stunned to learn that our own intelligence officials had information on some of the hijackers even before the attacks.
Three years later, Congress created the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to prevent similar gaps in intelligence gathering. Its nonpartisan director oversees 16 agencies and advises the president and Congress on how best to detect terrorist plots.
But now, when it comes to intercepting the communications of terrorists overseas, the Democrats' leadership in the House of Representatives has decided that his advice is optional.
The consequences of inaction are real: Last Saturday, the director of national intelligence, Adm. Mike McConnell, warned Congress that we have already lost intelligence information and that "our ability to gather information concerning the intentions and planning of terrorists and other foreign intelligence targets will continue to degrade because we have lost tools provided by the Protect America Act that enable us to adjust to changing circumstances."
Following the lead of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the leaders of the Democratic Party in the House of Representatives have prevented a vote on bipartisan improvements to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 — even though a majority in both chambers of Congress had indicated a willingness to support the updates and even though McConnell had been urging Congress to act on the revisions for nearly a year.
Call Back Later?
The House's lack of action meant that at midnight on Feb. 16, the nation's terrorist surveillance law expired. At that moment, intelligence officials who spend their days listening in on phone calls between terrorists overseas were legally barred from following new leads without first following outdated and cumbersome warrant procedures — even if neither caller is calling from within the U.S.
The consequences of inaction are real. Today, if someone in a previously unknown terror cell calls an eager new recruit in London, our agents will have to hang up the phone, apply for a warrant and hope for the best.
If a Marine in Iraq captures a terrorist from a previously unidentified terror group, our agents will not be free to call the phone numbers in his laptop right away.
If calls placed to these numbers are routed through U.S. phone lines, our agents will have to apply for a warrant, even though the people on the other end are overseas and the terrorist with the laptop is not an American.
Hard to believe? Sadly, this is the world we live in now that Congress has failed to act.
The importance of extending our terrorist surveillance program was never in doubt. Every intelligence official in Washington, along with every member of Congress involved in intelligence oversight, agrees that FISA has been vital in protecting us from attacks. The director of national intelligence and others across the intelligence community have credited the law with helping us capture multiple terrorists and disrupting multiple terror cells.
Departed Democrats
Intelligence officials and most members of Congress also agree on the need to fix two major flaws in the original FISA law.
Because the outdated 1978 version did not take technological advances into account, intelligence officials whose phone calls are routed through U.S. phone lines were forced to follow cumbersome "probable cause" warrant processes.
And because the 1978 version did not protect phone companies from lawsuits for patriotically helping the government trace terrorist calls, these companies now face dozens of lawsuits — suits that jeopardize not only the financial future of the phone companies but also our ability to trace terrorist communications.
An overwhelming bipartisan majority, 68 members of the Senate, voted to fix FISA and extend it for six years. Most House members publicly stated that they were wil-ling and eager to do the same thing. This means that a vast majority of Congress was eager to follow the advice of the director of national intelligence, whose job is to look across the intelligence landscape and see our weaknesses before the terrorists do.
Yet the House Democrats ignored a majority in Congress as well as the views of Adm. McConnell, whom Democrats and Republicans tapped three years ago to "connect the dots."
Faced with an urgent warning by the director of national intelligence, House Democrats closed up shop and went home. That decision, according to top intelligence officials, left the U.S. more vulnerable to attack.
Americans have been spared another terrorist attack at home thanks in large part to programs like electronic surveillance. As the House reconvenes this week, it's time for the Democrats' leadership to allow a vote on this vital national security measure.
McConnell is the Senate Republican leader.
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