Credit where Credit is due--the following news item is a pleasant surprise:>>Democrats Propose Compromise to Expand Government Surveillance
By Ellen Nakashima and Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writers
August 1, 2007
Congressional Democrats, under pressure from the Bush administration, today proposed a six-month compromise that would expand the government's authority to conduct electronic surveillance of overseas communications in search of terrorists.
The proposal, according to House and Senate Democrats, would permit a secret court to issue a single broad order approving eavesdropping of communications involving suspects overseas and other people, who may be in the United States. That order "need not be individualized," according to a Democratic aide.
But granting the government authority to intercept calls with a broad warrant, some civil liberties advocates charge, could allow a large number of phone calls and e-mails of U.S. persons and companies to be intercepted as well.
A Democratic aide said that a bill likely would pass the House this week.
At issue is the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which requires the government to obtain an order from a secret court to conduct electronic surveillance of terrorist or intelligence suspects in the United States. After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, President Bush authorized a secret warrantless wiretapping program that allowed the National Security Agency to intercept communications between individuals in the United States and others overseas when at least one party is suspected of links to terrorism.
That full extent of that program has never been disclosed. In January, it was put under the oversight of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, though officials have never made public the precise terms of the court's oversight.
In recent weeks, the administration has warned that the United States is under a heightened threat of another terrorist attack. It is seeking broadened authority in order to step up surveillance, but for now, Democrats do not want to provide that power indefinitely.
On Friday, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell submitted a proposal to Congress that asked for the authority to intercept without a court order any international phone call or e-mail between a surveillance target outside the United States and any person in the United States.
The administration's proposal also would grant the attorney general sole authority to order the interception of communications for as long as one year, if he certified that the surveillance was directed at a person outside the United States.
The Democrats' proposal would ensure that the FISA court, not just the attorney general, has an oversight role when surveillance of foreign targets touches on individuals inside the United States, according to a statement from Sen. John D. Rockefeller (D-W Va.), chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
The Democrats' proposal also would affirm that no court order is needed to eavesdrop on communications that begin and end outside the United States, even if they are routed through the United States.
Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU's Washington legislative office, contended that Democrats, wary of being tagged as soft on terrorism, are "capitulating to the politics of fear."
"The Democrats have pretty much gone along with what the administration has been pushing for, in terms of allowing them to change the program so dramatically as to allow quite a large amount of wiretapping of Americans without a warrant," she said.
Congressional leaders met with President Bush this morning at the White House, where they discussed the administration's wiretapping authority.
The Democratic aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the House has not acted yet, said that "hypothetically, if a broad warrant targeted on people in a foreign country 'scooped up' the calls of Americans, those calls would be dealt with through minimization procedures. If they were to be listened to, a warrant would be required."
Minimization means not recording or disseminating analysis of communications involving U.S. persons unless they are relevant to a foreign terrorism investigation.
More details of a potential deal emerged in a letter sent to McConnell and signed by more than 33 centrist Democrats who hold hawkish views on security.
The so-called Blue Dog Democrats announced their support for a compromise if it required individualized warrants for Americans.
The interim deal proposed by the Democrats also would be limited to 180 days and then would require renewal or renegotiation to continue. It also would compel compliance by private companies and address their liability for past cooperation with the government.
"We share your concern about the need for surveilling all foreign-to-foreign communications involving suspected terrorists, and believe Congress should act before we recess to clarify your authority to do this," the Blue Dog lawmakers wrote.
The letter was coordinated by Rep. Robert E. "Bud" CRAMER (D-Ala.), chairman of the House intelligence subcommittee on oversight and investigations, and Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), former ranking member of the intelligence committee, after a meeting with McConnell earlier this week.
Harman accused FISA critics of recklessness.
"Congress should act, but what we do will have huge consequences, and the choice is not between 'gut FISA or die,' as some in Congress might portray it," Harman said.
The statement by CRAMER, Harman and conservative Democrats, many of them from swing districts in the South and West, underscored the pressure on Democrats to act. But it also signaled what aides called a bottom-line insistence on court review and for warrants when cases involved U.S. individuals and companies.
"We need to fix this," CRAMER said. "We need to put pressure on everybody to see that we get this done."
Kate Martin, executive director of the Center for National Security Studies, said: "The devil is in the details. The issue is when and how soon the government would be required to seek a probable cause FISA warrant to acquire communications to or from individuals in the United States."<< |
