Playing Games With National Security
At midnight on Feb. 16, the hastily-passed
Protect America Act (PAA) expired after the Bush administration and its
supporters refused
to support a 21-day extension of the PAA. House Democrats sought
the extension in order to reconcile a Senate intelligence bill that
includes retroactive
immunity for telecommunications companies who participated in the
administration's warrantless wiretapping program after 9/11 with the
House-approved RESTORE Act, which contains more
civil liberties protections and no retroactive immunity. Angered
that House Democrats didn't "blink"
in the face of administration claims that "failure to pass" the Senate
bill "would jeopardize
the
security of our citizens," President Bush and his allies
in Congress
have launched a
daily fear-mongering campaign to pressure
the House into passing the law. At the same time, congressional
Republicans have refused to participate in negotiations between the
House and Senate, and Bush
has said that he will not compromise on the most contentious
issue holding up the bill -- retroactive immunity for telecoms. Instead
of
negotiating, Bush plans to hammer away at Congress with misleading
claims that America has "lost
intelligence information" because of the law's lapse and the lack
of immunity for telecoms.
'LOST INTELLIGENCE': Last
Friday, Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell and
Attorney General Michael Mukasey sent a letter to House Intelligence
Committee chair Silvestre Reyes (D-TX), claiming that "we have lost
intelligence information this past week as a direct result of the
uncertainty created by Congress' failure to act." Mukasey and McConnell
claimed that private companies had "delayed or refused compliance" with
administration "requests to initiate new surveillances of terrorist and
other foreign intelligence targets." Hours after the letter was
released, however, "administration officials told lawmakers that the
final holdout among
the companies had relented and agreed
to fully participate in the
surveillance program." Even so, in his radio address the next
morning, Bush claimed that "the
House's refusal to act is undermining
our ability to get cooperation
from private companies." In a Senate hearing yesterday, McConnell reluctantly
admitted that White House officials were informed on "Friday night"
about the developments, but Bush went ahead and aired his false
attack in the radio address the
next day anyway. In reality, "one lawyer in the telecommunications
industry" who spoke to the New York Times said that "he had seen little
practical effect on the industry's surveillance operations
since the law expired."
FEAR-MONGERING ATTACK ADS:
Since the expiration of the PAA, conservatives have launched a
full-scale public relations battle to paint opponents of the Senate
bill as a threat to national security. Last week, House Republicans
launched a web ad
modeled on the show 24, bellowing that "America
is at risk," implying that a terrorist attack is imminent
without the PAA. Last Friday, the Foundation
for the Defense of Democracies and an affiliated 501(c)(4) group
called Defense of
Democracies ran ads in 15 congressional districts and 17
media markets that erroneously claim "the
law that lets intelligence agencies intercept Al Qaeda communications
expire[d]" while showing a picture of Osama Bin Laden. The Foundation
for the Defense of Democracies is nominally a nonpartisan think
tank, but after the disingenuous ads aired, most
of the liberals on the groups board of advisers quit. In a
statement explaining her resignation from the group, political
consultant Donna Brazile said
she joined the organization because it was "committed to defending
democratic values," but "due to the influence of their funders, in
the last few years, FDD has
morphed into a
radical right wing organization that is doing the dirty
work for the Bush Administration."
IT'S THE IMMUNITY, STUPID: In a
fear-mongering op-ed for Investor's Business Daily this week,
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) claims that House
Democrats don't want necessary "updates" and "improvements" to the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that take "take technological
advances" since 1978 into account. This claim is false. In November, the
House passed the RESTORE Act, which fixes
the gaps in FISA, but doesn't include retroactive immunity for
telecoms. As DNI McConnell admitted to NPR recently, "the real issue" is "liability
protection for the private sector." But the administration is
having difficulty
making a compelling argument for immunity. Both the original
PAA and the RESTORE Act include
prospective
immunity for telecommunications companies, which means companies that lawfully
cooperate with the surveillance program in the future would be
protected from lawsuits. In fact, even in the original FISA law,
cooperation by
telecoms is not optional, but required, and they
have always had immunity if they obey the law. Asked last Friday to
explain "the
administration's argument
that without this retroactive immunity, the telecoms would be reluctant
in
the future to cooperate" even though they have prospective immunity,
White House spokesman Scott Stanzel was unable to give a straight
answer. Unable to explain how retroactive immunity is necessary for
ensuring future cooperation, President Bush has been reduced to arguing
"it's
not fair" to allow "class action lawsuits against private phone
carriers and other companies that are believed to have helped us
protect America."
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"The House approved $18 billion in new taxes on the largest oil companies yesterday," citing "record oil prices and rising gasoline costs in a time of economic troubles."
NEW
JERSEY: State residents "began bracing on Wednesday for the
upheaval" that Gov. Jon S. Corzine's (D) budget cuts will bring.
CALIFORNIA:
"A federal appeals court Wednesday rejected a state regulation that
reduced emissions from ships."
FLORIDA:
Recent mass power outage "could have been worse without emergency
measures adopted after the disastrous Northeast blackout of 2003."
THINK
PROGRESS: Five years ago, Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld were
"off the mark" on troop levels.
TPM
MUCKRAKER: Army official confirms that waterboarding violates
international law.
DANGER
ROOM: Air Force blocks access to many blogs.
THE
CRYPT: Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) claims Sen. Russ
Feingold's (D-WI) Iraq bill is "a bullet right in the hearts of our
troops."
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