The far left is apoplectic over Sen. Barack Obama’s announced support for the compromise bill passed by the House last week making essential updates to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The ACLU called the bill the “death march for the Fourth Amendment” and MoveOn.org is launching a campaign against Obama to get him to filibuster the bill in the Senate. Obama’s embrace of common-sense intelligence gathering reform is particularly painful for the left because it undermines all of the hyperbolic claims of lost civil liberties that supposedly occurred during …
House Democrats continued to block passage of a terrorist surveillance bill today, rejecting a measure by Rep. Heather Wilson (R-N.M.) to add the Senate-passed FISA bill to the fiscal 2009 Intelligence authorization bill. The amendment was defeated by one vote in the House Intelligence Committee, the latest proof that the Senate bill would pass the House if Speaker Nancy Pelosi allowed it to come to the House floor. Congress let emergency surveillance powers lapse more than 80 days ago. Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.), the committee’s top Republican, said it …
As Heritage’s Michael Franc documents again today, the Democratic party is rapidly becoming a party of rich cultural elites: Through May 1, the Democratic presidential field has suctioned up a cool $5.7 million from the more than 4,000 donors who list their occupation as “CEO.” The Republicans’ take was only $2.3 million. … Wall Street firms, long a symbol of American elite accomplishment, also tilt decisively toward the Democrats. Employees in storied Wall Street institutions such as Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and Morgan Stanley have all favored the Democratic …
There is lots of news in the battle against transnational terrorism—a lot of it not good. AP wire stories highlight one of the conclusions in the recently released State Department annual report on the state of terrorism in the world. According to the news service, al Qaeda “has rebuilt some of its pre-Sept. 11 capabilities from remote hiding places in Pakistan, leading to a spike in attacks last year in that country and neighboring Afghanistan.” Meanwhile, a Los Angles Times headline highlights that April was bad month in Iraq with …
When it comes to covering the debate over modernization of the 1978 Foreign Surveillance Act, usually professional members of the media often expose their deep ignorance on the issue. This Sunday on Meet the Press, Tim Russert asked CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden MR. RUSSERT: After September 11th, the NSA began to eavesdrop, wiretap Americans without court approval. That has now stopped, you need approval by the FISA courts, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Administrative courts. How many Americans were eavesdropped on after September 11th? GEN. HAYDEN: I can’t get into, into …
Intelligence and National Security Alliance chairman and former National Counterterrorism Center director and current foreign policy adviser to Barack Obama John Brennan told National Journal last week: I do believe strongly that [telecoms] should be granted that immunity. They were told to [cooperate] by the appropriate authorities that were operating in a legal context. I know people are concerned about that, but I do believe that’s the right thing to do. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman John Rockefeller (D-WV) told the Los Angeles Times: At the end of the day, it …
The House of Representatives is set to introduce new Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) legislation today designed to further delay the implementation of a bipartisan Senate deal that brings FISA into the 20th century. The House’s new “path on wiretaps” attempts to avoid the issue of legal protections for phone companies that helped U.S. intelligence agencies, by passing off the decision to the federal courts. No where does the House explain how privacy is better served by allowing one judge in California to decide whether or not the phone companies …
It has now been 22 days since the House of Representatives asked for a 21-day extension to pass legislation that would bring U.S. intelligence law into the 21st century. This is on top of the 15 days they asked for and were granted on Feb. 1. In total the House has had 214 days since the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was temporarily reformed on Aug. 5, 2007, to prove to the American people that they are serious about national security. We are still waiting. Director of National Intelligence Mike …
More highlights from Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) address on FISA at Heritage today: As President Bush has been trying to focus the country on the threat from radical jihadists, Senate and House Democrats demonstrated they had a different focus when they mandated in the 2008 Intelligence Authorization that U.S. intelligence agencies craft an intelligence assessment of climate change. Before the President’s Day recess, the House Intelligence Committee sent staff to the CIA to see how it is analyzing the environment. Given the Democratic leadership’s lack of focus on the threat …
Discussing the need for the House of Representatives to pass the portions of the Protect America Act that expired on February 16, Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) told an audience at The Heritage Foundation: “If there is not a threat, then why do you need the tools we’ve developed since 2001. … This is not the President’s program. This is the U.S. government’s program that was put in place to help keep us safe.” [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fq_YVY3bz0A[/youtube] You can read Hoekstra’s prepared remarks here. Matching words with action conservative in the House announced …
