(Video) Michael McConnell on the FISA expiration
Posted on February 17, 2008
If you are curious as to what the House did by allowing the FISA legislation expire, that the ACLU celebrated, really means…take a listen to the Director of National Intelligence. Thanks to Hot Air for the video.
WALLACE: I want to get into all of those in a moment, but let me ask you a specific question, because as you know, there’s kind of a general issue here.
The president, in a clip we played at the top, said that the country is now more in danger of attack. Here’s what leading Democrats are saying, and let’s put it up.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer says, “The president’s comments are wrong, divisive and nothing but fear-mongering.†Senator Ted Kennedy says, “The DNI’s,†that’s you, “The DNI’s latest comments show yet again the shamelessness of the administration’s tactics.â€
Question: Is the White House making the situation sound worse than it really is?
MCCONNELL: Chris, President Bush is repeating advice that I’m giving him. As you know, I am not a political figure. I am a professional. I’ve been doing this for 40 years.
And our situation now, when the terrorist threat is increasing because they’ve achieved — Al Qaeda’s achieved de facto safe haven in the border area of Pakistan and Afghanistan — the threat is going up.
And therefore, we do not have the agility and the speed that we had before to be able to move and try to capture their communications to thwart their planning.
WALLACE: Well, let me ask you about that. We’ll get to the telecoms in a moment. Let me ask you first, though, as you pointed out at the beginning, under the law that was passed in August, you had the ability, and you exercised that, to issue orders that allowed you to monitor terrorism suspects — communications involving alleged terrorist groups.
The law has expired as of midnight. But those orders to monitor are valid for a year, so they stay on the books and allow you to monitor them till at least August.
And the argument the Democrats make is that if there’s somebody new that springs up, some new group that you haven’t already covered, that you can go after them over old existing law. So they argue you haven’t lost any operational capability.
MCCONNELL: Chris, last summer we were in extremis, because we had lost under the old law about two-thirds of our capability.
The issue is it’s very dynamic, and the FISA court had ruled…
WALLACE: When you say dynamic, you mean that new groups are springing up, new possible targets?
MCCONNELL: New information, new personalities, new methods of communicating.
So when the program was returned to the FISA court in January of ‘07, initially we had coverage that we had asked for, but over time, because technology had changed and the law of ‘78 — it had not been changed, because technology had gone from a wireless world to a wired world.
Foreigners communicating in a foreign country — more than likely the communications would pass through the United States. Therefore, the court said if it touches a wire, consistent with the law, you have to have a warrant.
Now, a warrant means probable cause, which is a very time- consuming process to go through. So we were in that situation last summer. We passed the new act to make it — improve our situation. That act has now expired.
WALLACE: Isn’t the central issue here that you’ve lost your power to compel telecommunications companies to cooperate with you and also your ability to offer them legal immunity?
Again, the Democrats would say, “Look, if the cooperation is legal, they don’t need legal immunity.â€
MCCONNELL: Exactly right. The issue now is there’s uncertainty because the law has expired and the law of August, the Protect America Act, allowed us to compel — compel — support from a private carrier. That’s now expired.
So we can make an argument to a court but, you see, that makes my point. If I’m in court arguing for an authorization, then I’m missing a dynamic situation.
» Filed Under 1st Amendment, ACLU, News, Politics As Usual, War On Terror
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Yup, probably cause is a time consuming pain in the [edited]. No doubt about that. It makes it harder to fight terrorism. No doubt about that.
It also makes it harder to fight domestic murderers who, incidently, kill far more Americans every year than do terrorists. Yet for some reason, our Founders believed probable cause was so important that it needed to be embedded in the Constitution.
I’m sorry your job is difficult, Mr. McConnell. I trust that you’ll do the best you can with what you have.