Summary
Deception and political skullduggery are hardly new developments in the nation's capitol, but the House Democratic leadership has reached new heights of intellectual dishonesty in its spin campaign for legislation to change the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which reaches the House floor today. House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes (acting with the strong support of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi) are pushing legislation called the RESTORE Act, a major overhaul of FISA - the major U.S. law governing electronic surveillance for intelligence and counterterrorism purposes. Two months ago, Democratic leaders were embarrassed by the defection of many members of the Blue Dog Coalition, a group of relatively moderate Democrats, who joined with Republicans in passing a temporary FISA fix that would ensure that the National Security Agency and other intelligence agencies could monitor suspected terrorist communications overseas without having to obtain a warrant.
So, Democratic Party leaders, still seething over the Blue Dog defections in August, are pushing the RESTORE bill, scheduled for debate today. The Democrats claim the measure is a "compromise" that will ensure that U.S. intelligence agents can spy on terrorists and the like while preventing dark forces in the Bush administration from being able to spy on Americans whenever the spirit moves them. The most harmful features of the legislation include provisions that would require a court order to gather communications when a foreign terrorist tries to contact someone in the United States. From 1978, when FISA was first enacted, until this year, no such requirement existed.See the full content of this document
Extract
Mr. Reyes's Fisa Falsehoods
The bill also omits any retrospective liability provision that would prevent lawsuits against telephone companies like AT&T and Verizon, which a...
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