The real pressure on the Democrats

NY Times:

Under pressure from President Bush, House Democrats on Saturday grudgingly prepared to clear the way for approving changes in a terrorist surveillance program despite serious reservations about the scope of the measure.

With time running out before a scheduled monthlong break and the Senate already in recess, House Democrats confronted the choice of accepting the administration’s bill or letting it die. If it died, that would leave Democratic lawmakers, who have long been anxious about appearing weak on national security issues, facing an August fending off charges from Mr. Bush and Republicans that they left Americans exposed to terror threats.

There was no indication that lawmakers were responding to new intelligence warnings. Rather, Democrats were responding to administration pleas that a recent secret court ruling had created a legal obstacle in monitoring foreign communications relayed over the Internet. They also appeared worried about the political repercussions of being perceived as interfering with intelligence gathering. But the disputes were significant enough that they were likely to resurface before the end of the year.

Democrats have expressed concerns that the administration is reaching for powers that go well beyond solving what officials have depicted as narrow technical issues in the current law.

“They have got us in a vise,” Representative Louise M. Slaughter, Democrat of New York and chairwoman of the Rules Committee, said as she left a Saturday afternoon meeting where senior Democrats were debating how to handle the issue in the final hours before recess.

Mr. Bush on Saturday urged the House to act promptly after the Senate on Friday night approved changes in the terrorist surveillance program sought by the administration, which said it was being prevented from monitoring communications of terror suspects overseas during a period of apparently heightened activity.

“Protecting America is our most solemn obligation,” Mr. Bush said in a statement.

Other Republicans called for swift House action as well. “I can’t imagine they would take a monthlong vacation without fulfilling their obligation to keep America safe,” said Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader.

Senior House Democrats said they were resigned to moving forward with the administration bill, which would be in force for six months. But they continued to encounter resistance from lawmakers who complained they were being bullied into hasty action by the administration and Congressional Republicans. They said Democrats should stick with a House proposal defeated Friday that kept more judicial control over the program than the administration wanted. Their opposition was complicating efforts to end the dispute by sending the bill to Mr. Bush.

“Let’s make our Constitution work,” said Representative John F. Tierney, Democrat of Massachusetts. “We can have security and our civil liberties too.”

House Republicans complained angrily that Democrats on Saturday had not immediately considered and approved the changes in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in the wake of Senate approval.

“If it is good enough for Senate Intelligence Committee Democrats, it should be good enough for House Democrats,” said Representative Roy Blunt of Missouri, the second-ranking Republican.

Representative Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the senior Republican on the Intelligence Committee, accused Democrats of dithering for months without giving “the intelligence community tools they need while we are at heightened risk.”

Administration officials have been quietly pushing Congress to pass a broad “modernization” of the current law, arguing that technological changes — especially the expansion of telephone calls over the Internet — had made the current rules outdated.

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The real vise for the Democrats is the pressure from the kooks at the Kos convention this weekend and otherwise sane voters who would question why they would resist intercepting enemy communications about attacks planned against the US. The kooks have been minimizing the threat and maximizing the paranoia about the administration, but in the back of their minds the Democrats know al Qaeda still wants to attack us and that the majority of voters would not understand why they would not even let the administration gather the dots, much less connect them.

If this were September 12, 2001, would be even be having this conversation? The authorization would have been done in a matter of minutes. The Democrats know that the majority of voters are on the side of gathering the intelligence information and they are not concerned about the privacy rights of terrorist trying to kill us.

Update: The House passed the Senate bill authorizing the NSA to intercept enemy communications for a few months. The vote was 227-183 which means 183 were willing to fore go intelligence in order to assure the privacy rights of terrorist.