Senate passes Bush terrorism spy bill

[Atomic Rooster]

Senate passes Bush terrorism spy bill - Yahoo! News - AP

Quote:

The Senate, in a high-stakes showdown over national security, voted late Friday to temporarily give President Bush expanded authority to eavesdrop on suspected foreign terrorists without court warrants.

Them Democraps sure are standing up for your rights.

[Chuckiechan]

The House is still blocking it. They don't want the US government eavesdropping on our enemies overseas without a domestic warrant.

There are plans being hatched, and we are deaf now. And that is the way the Democrats want it.

[Disley]

Quote:

Democrats agreed the law should not restrict U.S. spies from tapping in on foreign suspects. However, they initially demanded the FISA court to review the eavesdropping process before it begins to make sure that Americans aren't targeted.

[MTAtech]

Quote:

link It [the White House] proposed giving the attorney general carte blanche to order eavesdropping on any international telephone calls or e-mail messages if he decided on his own that there was a “reasonable belief” that the target of the surveillance was outside the United States. The attorney general’s decision would not be subject to court approval or any supervision.

The White House, of course, insisted that Congress must do this right away, before the August recess that begins on Monday — the same false urgency it used to manipulate Congress into passing the Patriot Act without reading it and approving the appalling Military Commissions Act of 2006.

Senator Jay Rockefeller, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, offered a sensible alternative law, as did his fellow Democrat, Senator Russ Feingold. In either case, the attorney general would be able to get a broad warrant to intercept foreign communications routed through American networks for a limited period. Then, he would have to justify the spying in court. This fix would have an expiration date so Congress could then dispassionately consider what permanent changes might be needed to FISA.

[Chuckiechan]

http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/

Quote:

Nancy Pelosi's Choice
Posted by Hugh Hewitt | 9:22 AM
The McConnell-Bond bill that revises and updates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act passed the Senate with strong bipartisan support of 17 Democratic senators. It is a crucially necessary bit of legislation given that FISA is not only 30 years old, it has also been crippled by the "secret ruling by a FISA judge earlier this year that declared surveillance of purely foreign communications that pass through a U.S. communications node illegal without a court-approved warrant -- a requirement that intelligence officials have described as unacceptably burdensome." (Details here.)

More from the Washington Post: "Every day we don't have [this wiretap authority], we don't know what's going on outside the country," a senior White House official said. "All you need is one communication from, say, Pakistan to Afghanistan that's routed through Seattle that tells you 'I'm about to do a truck bomb in New York City' or 'about to do a truck bomb in Iraq,' and it's too late."

The House could quickly take up what is obviously an urgently needed and broadly backed bill and thus help secure the country against terrorist attack, or the Pelosi Democrats could continue to play politics with the nation's defenses. None of the Democratic candidates for president have called on their party to move decisively to fix this gap in the law, and the irresponsible lassitude by the Speaker and her extreme colleagues and staff underscore the consequences of turning leadership of the government over to the silly party.

At this moment, as has been the case for many months, terrorists abroad are communicating their plans and we are not intercepting those communications though we have the technical ability to do so because of Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats in control of Congress.

17 Senate Democrats understood that this situation cannot continue. Is Nancy Pelosi so blinded by partisan rage that she will leave the nation blinded rather than pass a bill the Administration demands?

The Democrats do not want surveillance of "digital signals" to take place in "real time". They want the warrant first, then the attack second, then eavesdrop third.

The Democrats will not pass it because it may be considered to be a Republican win and blocking Republicans is the entire Democrat program.

[Theophylact]

The Democrats will pass it because they're a craven bunch. They've always given Bush everything he wants when he threatens to blame them for anything a terrorist might do if he doesn't get his way. The Supreme Court gave them an out with Hamdan, and they threw it away with the Military Commissions Act.

[Chuckiechan]

If they pass anything at all, it's to cover their asses should we have a terrorist attack.

The Dem's just see terrorism as another difference between Republicans and Democrats - All progress must be blocked. Any win on a Republican bill is a defeat for the Democrats.

They have learned nothing in all they years out in the cold.

[Disley]

This seems like another way for the WH to spy on US citizens.
If a terrorists internet message is sent from Pakistan to Iraq, and part of the message is routed through the US, then an innocent US citizens message sent from Wisconsin to Washington may also be routed through an off shore node and therefore can be opened and read.
Terrorists don't send emails to each other with the time and location of their next truck bomb, as the Washington Post makes out.
(Where do they get their examples from) because if they think they'll catch terrorists this easily they must be extremely naive.
Only the most paranoid would believe this will stop terrorists and their plots to attack the US.
If they really want to know where the next attack in the US will happen, they'd better ask Dick Cheney, or monitor his internet traffic.

[Atomic Rooster]

The voice of reason as espoused by the great citizen of Aussie land.