A Second Chance

Just before the Summer Recess, Congress reneged on the promises made during the November elections and gave the President everything he wanted when it came to spying on Americans without a warrant. They justified the hurried passage of the bill so that they could get out of town by limiting the life of the new law to just six months. Now, as promised, they are revisiting FISA, and the White House has begun with another full-court press. From today's Los Angeles Times:

The fight over the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program began anew Tuesday as the nation's top spy urged Congress to make permanent the law that gives intelligence agencies more latitude to monitor overseas phone calls and e-mails.

Director of National Intelligence J. Michael McConnell testified that the administration needed the expanded powers because old versions of the law required intelligence agents to obtain time-consuming warrants for any communication that passed through U.S. networks -- even if the call was between two foreign suspects. [Emphasis added]

Time consuming? The FISA court is just down the hall, is for the most part a rubber-stamp operation, and will grant the warrant even after the wire tap has been initiated.

Mr. McConnell let out all the stops in his testimony, urging Congress to make the law permanent because the world is just filled with evil-doers:

As part of his push to get the law renewed, McConnell said that in addition to a persistent threat from Al Qaeda-linked terrorists, the nation was facing increasingly assertive spying by Russia and China.

Ack! The Russkis and the folks from Red China! They're back!

Someone should point out to Mr. McConnell that such rhetoric is just too pre-9/10 for thinking Americans.

Someone should also point that out to the Democrats in the 110th Congress.