From NRO corner:

Holding Congress to Account   [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

THE WHITE HOUSE

 

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release                          February 14, 2008                

 

 

STATEMENT BY THE PRESS SECRETARY

 

 

Democratic leaders said today that if the Protect America Act expires, there will be no impact on our intelligence gathering capabilities, and no cost to our national security.  They are wrong.

Although PAA authorizations permitting current intelligence activities will not immediately expire with expiration of the Act, Senator Reid is wrong and irresponsibly misleading to say that we will be just as safe if the PAA expires as we are with the PAA in effect.  The House’s willingness to permit the PAA to expire without passing the bipartisan Senate bill will harm our ability to conduct surveillance to detect new threats to our security, including the locations, intentions, and capabilities of terrorists and other foreign intelligence targets abroad.  The Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence would be stripped of the power to authorize new certifications against foreign intelligence targets, including international terrorists, abroad.   And they could be stripped of their power to compel the assistance of a private company not already helping us. This means that surveilling new terrorist threats will require the Intelligence Community to go back to the old pre-PAA process of seeking court approvals that created the dangerous intelligence gap that we temporarily closed with passage of the PAA last August.  The Intelligence Community will be stuck with the authorities it currently has and would be hampered in its ability to protect us from new terrorist threats that emerge.  This risks creating new intelligence gaps, which damages our national security and makes no sense if the first priority is making sure our citizens are safe.    

The House’s failure to act will also raise risks with respect to current intelligence activities.  This is because the PAA provides liability protection for our private sector partners assisting in current activities, but those partners are likely to raise questions about whether the liability protection they currently enjoy expires with the PAA.  Similar questions could arise regarding whether the PAA’s provisions authorizing courts to compel cooperation by the private sector also expire with the Act.  At a minimum, the private sector would become less willing to help our efforts to defend the country because of this uncertainty; at worst, they would cease helping us at all.  And if we don’t have their cooperation, we don’t have a program.

The terrorist threats to our nation are very real and grave, and inaction by the House in the face of these risks is unacceptable.

Democrat leaders know that if they put the Senate bill on the House floor today, it would pass with bipartisan support.  Make no mistake – letting the PAA expire without replacing it with the bipartisan Senate bill results in greater risk to our national security, and it is irresponsible and false for Democrats to suggest otherwise.

Keep reading this post . . .

02/14 04:47 PM

Item number two on this subject:  again from NRo corner:

That House GOP Walkout   [David Freddoso]

Yesterday, the Senate voted to reauthorize the FISA bill with a veto-proof majority. As Corner readers know, the president wants to sign the legislation before it expires on Saturday.

But House Democrats did not have time to pass the Senate bill, because they faced the crucial and time-sensitive matter of voting on contempt charges against White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and former White House Counsel Harriet Miers.

This is why the walkout took place. Republicans say they were not avoiding the contempt vote so much as they were upset that the House has time for that but no time to reauthorize a bill that is widely supported on a bi-partisan basis in Congress and by the public, and which must be reauthorized before Congress leaves. "The walkout still would have happened," said one staffer. "Our message was that it’s interesting that you guys are willing to stay in town to play this useless political game, but you won’t renew the FISA bill, which has serious implications for national security."

To be fair, the walkout did allow Republicans to skip the aforementioned vote on the contempt citations. But FISA is obviously the more important issue.

The Senate FISA bill has enough support to pass the House, if it's only brought to the floor. The Democratic House leadership is playing to the left-wing base. They tried yesterday to pass a temporary extension, during which they could significantly alter the bill that passed the Senate.

If the president does not sign the bill before Saturday, then we revert to the previous FISA law. The feds will be able to continue certain ongoing terrorist monitoring activities, but they cannot initiate new ones. (It becomes easier to start up a terror cell on Saturday.)

The idea of a walkout was conjured up this morning, Boehner's office told me. Members were slightly unhappy with how cold it was outside, but they sent a powerful message when they came out onto the Capitol steps. The House hasn't had a day like this since last year, when the "stolen vote" controversy caused chaos on the floor.

Tensions were already unnecessarily high today because of an earlier scheduling snafu — a simple error, apparently in the Speaker's office. Under a bipartisan agreement, the House was not to come into session until after the Tom Lantos memorial service. But the service ran long, and the session was gavelled in anyway. The first item up for consideration was a Republican motion to adjourn. At first, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer's (D., Md.) office believed at first that this had been the Republicans' fault. Later on, that misunderstanding was cleared up and explained on the floor. Someone just messed up, no ill will intended.

Will the FISA bill be allowed to expire over the Presidents' Day work period? It's all in the hands of the House Democratic leadership right now.

02/14 04:12 PM

The dhimmis are pure dnager to the country.

TommyO