Senate, Bush agree on terrorist surveillance

Washington Post:

Senate Democrats and Republicans reached agreement with the Bush administration yesterday on the terms of new legislation to control the federal government's domestic surveillance program, which includes a highly controversial grant of legal immunity to telecommunications companies that have assisted the program, according to congressional sources.

Disclosure of the deal followed a decision by House Democratic leaders to pull a competing version of the measure from the floor because they lacked the votes to prevail over Republican opponents and GOP parliamentary maneuvers.

The collapse marked the first time since Democrats took control of the chamber that a major bill was withdrawn from consideration before a scheduled vote. It was a victory for President Bush, whose aides lobbied heavily against the Democrats' bill, and an embarrassment for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who had pushed for the measure's passage.

The draft Senate bill has the support of the intelligence committee's chairman, John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), and Bush's director of national intelligence, Mike McConnell. It will include full immunity for those companies that can demonstrate to a court that they acted pursuant to a legal directive in helping the government with surveillance in the United States.

Such a demonstration, which the bill says could be made in secret, would wipe out a series of pending lawsuits alleging violations of privacy rights by telecommunications companies that provided telephone records, summaries of e-mail traffic and other information to the government after Sept. 11, 2001, without receiving court warrants. Bush had repeatedly threatened to veto any legislation that lacked this provision.

Senate Democrats successfully pressed for a requirement that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court review the government's procedures for deciding who is to be the subject of warrantless surveillance. They also insisted that the legislation be renewed in six years, Democratic congressional officials said. The Bush administration had sought less stringent oversight by the court and wanted the law to be permanent.

The domestic surveillance issue has been awkward for Democrats since the administration's secret program of warrantless counterterrorism surveillance became public in late 2005....

"Awkward" is liberal media speak for saying the Democrats were on the wrong side politically on the issue and they knew it. They continue to be on the wrong side of the issue in the House and that is why they had to pull their awful bill. The smart thing to do is get rid of FISA. It is very likely unconstitutional even in its new form, because it interferes with the President's inherent power as commander in chief to intercept enemy communications.

The idea that warrants are needed to intercept the enemy's communications with its agents in this country in a time of war is absurd on its face. It is a prescription drawn up by the enemy's useful idiots that instead of protecting Americans puts them at risk because it is likely that the communication will not be intercepted while lawyers are jumping through hoops at the court house while the communication is never intercepted.

The very idea that someone exchanging messages or having a conversation with a representative of al Qaeda is entitled to privacy is so ridiculous that the Democrats has to pull their House bill. They should be embarrassed to even have proposed it. This should be a continuing campaign issue. The voters need to know how goofy the Democrats are on this issue.