Are Democrats Retreating on the NSA Issue?

Posted on February 13, 2006

I have a late breaking update on my earlier post regarding the NSA-FISA issue. Apparently General Hayden provided a lot of details and apparent confirmation regarding this issue which must be provided to the public prior to this week’s debate. Importantly Hayden confirmed NSA was not
directed to adjust or change its monitoring and has been operating under an Executive Order from 1981. Also, Hayden admitted they knew Atta and other terrorists where in the US but could not act - probably due to the prudish FISA Court rules on NSA intercepts.

On January 23rd, General Michael Hayden spoke to the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.
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Hayden informed us that his office has been operating under an executive order (EO#12333 from 1981) that gave the NSA the tools it is currently using — meaning the NSA wasn’t suddenly unleashed to go marauding every American’s privacy by George W. Bush.
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“I [Hayden] testified in open session to the House Intel Committee in April of the year 2000. At the time, I created some looks of disbelief when I said that if Osama bin Laden crossed the bridge from Niagara Falls, Ontario to Niagara Falls, New York, there were provisions of U.S. law that would kick in, offer him protections and affect how NSA could now cover him.”
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He admits that we knew that Mohamed Atta and his crew were in the US. But he says that “we did not know anything more” because prior to 9/11 “Mohamed Atta and his fellow 18 hijackers would have been presumed to have been protected persons, U.S. persons, by NSA “.

AJ has covered this before.

NSA cannot — under the FISA statute, NSA cannot put someone on coverage and go ahead and play for 72 hours while it gets a note saying it was okay.

Via Washington Post

Two key Democrats yesterday called the NSA domestic surveillance program necessary for fighting terrorism but questioned whether President Bush had the legal authority to order it done without getting congressional approval.

Rep. Jane Harman (Calif.), ranking Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and former Senate majority leader Thomas A. Daschle (S.D.) said Republicans are trying to create a political issue over Democrats’ concern on the constitutional questions raised by the spying program.

Who is making this a political issue? I think it was the “liberal” NY Times that made this into a political issue by leaking this classified information. I think the Bush administration wanted this to stay out of the news, and not be a political issue if I am not mistaken.

At the same time, the Republican chairmen of the Senate and House intelligence committees — Sen. Pat Roberts (Kan.) and Rep. Peter Hoekstra (Mich.), who attended secret National Security Agency briefings — said they supported Bush’s right to undertake the program without new congressional authorization. They added that Democrats briefed on the program, who included Harman and Daschle, could have taken steps if they believed the program was illegal. All four appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Roberts said he could not remember Democrats raising questions about the program during briefings that, beginning in 2002, were given to the “Gang of Eight.” That group was made up of the House speaker and minority leader, the majority and minority leaders of the Senate, and the chairmen and ranking Democrats of the House and Senate intelligence committees.

At the briefings, Roberts said, “Those that did the briefing would say, ‘Do you have questions? Do you have concerns?’ ” Hoekstra said if Democrats thought Bush was violating the law, “it was their responsibility to use every tool possible to get the president to stop it.”

So, the democrats had their chance to question this program, and failed to do so. Only after the information was leaked have they tried to turn it into a political issue.

Daschle said he wants the program to continue but maintained that the warrantless wiretapping of calls that came into the United States or calls made overseas, even those involving suspected terrorist sources, violate the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
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Harman noted that the House and Senate intelligence committees were briefed last week on domestic wiretapping. “We’re only 36 members total that we’re talking about, and those members should decide whether this program fits within the law, and if it does, which I think it does, we should all declare victory. If it does not, then we should be changing the law or changing the program.”

So what do we have here? They say we need this program, and if it is illegal, then we should change the laws to make it legal. It definitely sounds like a retreat to me.

Dr. Sanity

Partisan politics is, of course, driving the entire issue. The Dems want votes and so they are putting on a show for their lunatic base, who are ready to give in, apologize and implement shar’ia if necessary– just so they can get even with Bush for shattering their dreams of utopia.

Captain’s Quarters:

Now Democrats need to make the NSA program and their hysterical attacks against the President ancient history. They now want people to think that they’ve supported the surveillance all along, but just want to craft legislation to support it. In truth, all they had to do was to propose that legislation when the Times published the existence of the program, but Democrats instead chose to use it as a political club to beat up the Administration. That effort backfired, and now they need that legislation to avoid being seen as lacking seriousness against terrorists — a judgment that they have only reinforced in this latest kerfuffle.

AJ Strata breaks it down. He has done a lot of research on this, make sure to check out his post on this. It has lots of good information.

The Democrats not only damaged themselves on the issue of National Security with this whole thing, but also in the area of integrity. Their leadership that was briefed on this never spoke any significant dissent on this until it was leaked, and they thought it would be politically advantageous. Now, they are trying to backpeddal. Maybe now we can focus on the real issue here, who leaked this classified information to the Times?

Full Transcript
In related news, law-enforcement officials are moving quickly in investigating the leak.

Federal agents have interviewed officials at several of the country’s law enforcement and national security agencies in a rapidly expanding criminal investigation into the circumstances surrounding a New York Times article published in December that disclosed the existence of a highly classified domestic eavesdropping program, according to government officials.

The investigation, which appears to cover the case from 2004, when the newspaper began reporting the story, is being closely coordinated with criminal prosecutors at the Justice Department, the officials said. People who have been interviewed and others in the government who have been briefed on the interviews said the investigation seemed to lay the groundwork for a grand jury inquiry that could lead to criminal charges.

The inquiry is progressing as a debate about the eavesdropping rages in Congress and elsewhere. President Bush has condemned the leak as a “shameful act.” Others, like Porter J. Goss, the C.I.A. director, have expressed the hope that reporters will be summoned before a grand jury and asked to reveal the identities of those who provided them classified information.

Mr. Goss, speaking at a Senate intelligence committee hearing on Feb. 2, said: “It is my aim and it is my hope that we will witness a grand jury investigation with reporters present being asked to reveal who is leaking this information. I believe the safety of this nation and the people of this country deserve nothing less.”

Another excellent post on this at Shrink Wrapped.

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