FISA follies and the terrorist rights Democrats

Washington Times Editorial:

When it comes to reforming the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), Democrats are caught between the political desire to pander to their far-left political base and the security imperative of preventing future terrorist attacks. They continue to look and sound like slippery politicians.

The House Democratic leadership — in particular Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers and Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes (with the blessing of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi) — is pushing a "reform" bill that would roll back the temporary expansion of eavesdropping authority approved in August by Congress. The eavesdropping authority expires Feb. 1.

The Democrats' measure does not include an essential provision sought by Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, who wants to grant retroactive immunity to U.S. telecommunications companies that cooperated with government efforts to conduct warrantless surveillance of terrorists following the September 11 attacks. The lawsuits against telecom companies could prove to be a financial windfall for a favored Democratic Party constituency: trial lawyers. Approximately 40 lawsuits are pending against telecommunications firms accused of violating the law.

Some prominent Democrats, including House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, clearly uncomfortable with carrying water for trial lawyers, have indicated that they'll agree to retroactive immunity if the White House yields to their demands for more information about the terrorist surveillance program. And if the administration refuses — well, then the Democrats will punish telecom firms for previous good-faith cooperation with with government efforts to monitor jihadists plotting against this country by blocking permanent changes to FISA.

But the damage would go well beyond enabling frivolous lawsuits to go forward in order to shake down U.S. businesses. If the Democrats are ultimately successful in preventing FISA reform or limiting it to small, cosmetic changes, the big losers could be Americans serving in war zones like Afghanistan and Iraq — that's right, the very soldiers Democrats tell us they are so concerned about.

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The country existed for over 200 years without FISA but you would never know that from listening to Democrats. Their recent attempts to offer constitutional protection to terrorist in another country is inexplicable. It is also one of the most irresponsible suggestions by a major party in a time of war in the history of this country.

It is beyond absurd to give privacy rights to people who are trying to destroy us. If you don't want to know what their plans are you are an idiot. Democrats respond that they want to know, they just want to make sure those doing the looking jump through some hoops that will make it likely that the information will be missed. Then they will blame them for not collecting the dots.

Part of this comes from their lawfare mentality. If we were collecting this information for a criminal case, they might have a point. But we are collecting this information to prevent an enemy attack and their should be no expectation of privacy by people planning mass murder of non combatants. FISA should be revoked or found unconstitutional. It is certainly not protecting me, but it is making our enemy's job easier.