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FISA Opposition Leaves Hillary, Obama Vulnerable Ronald Kessler The media have virtually ignored what could be Hillary Clinton's and Barack Obama's greatest vulnerability in the general presidential election: their vote against revising the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). In voting this month against the measure, both senators opposed a continuation of the government's longstanding ability to monitor, without a warrant, calls between terrorists situated in foreign countries. What if these two Democratic presidential candidates prevailed? If Osama bin Laden placed a call to an al-Qaida member in London to arrange a nuclear hit on Manhattan, a warrant would first have to be obtained. By the time that happened, the call would have been over. Even using FISA's emergency provision, it takes at least two days to prepare the paperwork and obtain all the necessary approvals. Because a call was not intercepted in time, millions of Americans could have been killed. "You can't go back and ask for a FISA for a conversation that's already occurring," says a counterterrorism operative. "That's the fundamental issue. When they pick up on a U.S. conversation, they can't tell these two guys who are talking: Hey, hold on a minute while we go get a FISA.' A conversation is a conversation; it happens, and then it's lost." In opposing the FISA revision, civil liberties should not have been an issue. Because the targets are on foreign soil, they are not subject to the probable cause and warrant requirements of the Fourth Amendment. Under the revision, if surveillance of an overseas call targets a person who is in the U.S., a warrant still must be obtained. And, incorporating President Bush's original NSA intercept program, the FISA court will review, retroactively, intercepts of calls between an overseas al-Qaida operative and an American on U.S. soil. What was at issue was the two presidential candidates' effort to appeal to the left and their complete disregard for the safety of Americans.
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Indeed, at the recent annual left-wing Kos Convention, Clinton drew praise and applause for her vote. "First the Democrats screamed that the intelligence wasn't good enough, and now they claim that gathering of intelligence is too good," says Brad Blakeman, a Republican strategist who was a Bush White House aide. "They are trying to dumb down intelligence, which makes us more vulnerable to an attack." When War Is Reduced to a Bumper Sticker Clinton's and Obama's votes against the FISA revision mirror Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards' claim that the war on terror is not a strategy to make America safer. Rather, it's a political slogan or "bumper sticker" used by the Bush administration to cover up its mistakes. "Remember that old Edmund Burke quote," Republican candidate Mitt Romney responded. "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.' And that, I am afraid, is the boiled-down version of what John Edwards said that good men should do nothing. Put their head in the sand and hope it all goes away." "When you go so far as to suggest that the global war on terror is a bumper sticker or slogan, it kind of makes the point that I've been making over and over again that the Democrats or at least some of them are in denial . . ." Rudy Giuliani said.
Nothing could demonstrate that more than the votes by Clinton and Obama as well as by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid against updating FISA. Going back to the founding of NSA in 1952, the agency could intercept the communications of people outside the U.S. without obtaining a warrant because overseas communications were usually intercepted abroad through the atmosphere. Now, because of technological advances, 90 percent of communications between countries are routed through switches within the U.S. over fiberoptic lines. Because the phone calls, e-mails, and faxes pass through hard wires in the U.S. and thus require physical interception, FISA court judges began challenging the interceptions. They said that even though the calls are between foreign countries, FISA requires a warrant before the communications can be monitored. That brought the system to a standstill: The FBI and CIA could not obtain the take from calls that might have been critically important to stopping a terrorist plot. As the country became more vulnerable to attack, Mike McConnell, director of national intelligence, pleaded with Congress to reform the FISA. But Democratic leaders delayed a vote for months. The fix which Clinton, Obama, Pelosi, and Reid opposed was meant to return the situation to the status quo so that calls between foreign countries could be intercepted without a warrant, as Congress intended when it passed FISA. Fortunately, Republicans and a minority of moderate Democrats passed the new legislation, but it expires in six months and must be renewed. Incredibly, no newspaper singled out Clinton's and Obama's votes in news stories. Only three newspapers the New York Sun, the Oklahoman, and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette criticized their votes in editorials. Candidates 'Dangerously Out of Touch' Mitt Romney issued a statement saying Clinton and Obama are "dangerously out of touch when it comes to defending the homeland. Our most basic civil liberty is the right to be kept alive. We must use every reasonable measure to keep America safe." In the end, Clinton's and Obama's votes can be expected to backfire. Above all, Americans do not want another 9/11. In voting against the FISA revision, Clinton and Obama would have recklessly made us more vulnerable to attack. As outlined in the NewsMax article "Bernstein's Hillary: A Complex Character," when she was first lady, Clinton White House lawyers joked that, in deciding which course to take in deciding strategy, the best approach was to ask themselves what Hillary would do then do the opposite. "The fact they think they can score political points by weakening our country is an abomination and can be used effectively in the general election," Blakeman says.
"They have a platform of a weaker America. There shouldn't be any disagreement about keeping our country safe."
Ronald Kessler is chief Washington correspondent of NewsMax.com. View his previous reports and get his dispatches sent to you free via e-mail. Go here now. © NewsMax 2007. All rights reserved.
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