We Live To Fight Another Day

by hilzoy

Today, the Republicans failed to sustain a cloture motion on the bill to amend FISA while providing retroactive immunity to telecoms. Four Democrats voted in favor of cloture, and one Republican (Arlen Specter) voted against. This means that debate has to continue, and the bill cannot yet come to a vote. Immediately afterwards, the Republicans blocked cloture on a bill that would have extended the existing law for a month. This means that the amendments to FISA that the Congress rushed through last August (note: not FISA itself!) will expire on Friday.

Moreover, Bush has said that if the Congress passes a one-month extension of the bill, he will veto it. Glenn Greenwald:

"This veto threat is one of the President's most brazen acts ever, so nakedly exposing the fun and games he routinely plays with National Security Threats. After sending Mike McConnell out last August to warn that we will all die without the PAA, Bush now says that he would rather let it expire than give Congress another 30 days. He just comes right out and announces, then, that he will leave us all vulnerable to a Terrorist Attack unless he not only gets everything he wants from Congress -- all his new warrantless eavesdropping powers made permanent plus full immunity for his lawbreaking telecom partners -- but also gets it exactly when he wants it (i.e., now -- not 30 days from now)."

Greenwald also has the best explanation I've found of what today's votes mean. (See especially Update IV.) Short version: the Senators voted as they did because the Republicans had blocked them from being able to consider any amendments to the bill, not because they were opposed to telecom immunity itself.

Still, every day that we postpone this is a day when we can try to build support for what ought to be the uncontroversial proposition that breaking the law is not OK just because the President says it is.

Comments

[dlk]

Cancel the NSA charter.

The NSA is military and hired all the CIA analysts and linguists CIA hired before 9/11.

We don't need the military doing civilian spying and we don't need CIA doing civilian domestic spying, Plame.

[Gary Farber]

"The NSA is military"

Just for the record, this is loosely true enough to be within the realm of being a statement labeled as reasonably true.

But it's technically somewhat more complicated if we were to get picky.

[...] 8. What is the breakdown of the NSA/CSS workforce?

NSA/CSS employees are both civilian and military (from the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard). The breakdown is approximately 50 percent civilian and 50 percent military. They represent a unique combination of specialties: analysts, engineers, physicists, mathematicians, linguists, computer scientists, researchers, security officers, data flow experts, managers, and administrative and clerical specialists, to name several.

[...]

In accordance with Department of Defense Directive 5100.20, dated December 23, 1971, the Director NSA/Chief, CSS is always a commissioned officer of the military services with at least a rank of three stars during the period of his incumbency. The Deputy Director is always a technically-experienced civilian.

As I said, the claim is reasonably true. NSA is a DoD organization. I just figured there's no harm in clarifying a few slightly complicating details, just because I'm a fan of details.

Why, look at the benefits of being a civilian employee. Good retirement, and it's not even a secret.

[Doug H.]

I don't know, Glenn seems to do a lot of mindreading there. Given that the GOP was pretty much forced to vote to let the act expire - and thus allowing the Terrorists To Win - smells to me of some serious political jujitsu.

[KCinDC]

Two points the Democrats need to keep hammering on: First, by his own terms, Bush is putting the convenience of the telecommunications companies above the safety of the American people, since he's willing to veto this "essential" legislation if no immunity is added. Second, if as Bush says the surveillance has been lawful, then why is any immunity necessary?

[trilobite]

Bear in mind that Bush feels free to eavesdrop without a warrant or a statute, so he doesn't really care whether the FISA amendment expires. As far as he's concerned, having a law in place is just a minor convenience, frees up a couple of his attorneys to do important things like write memos justifying torture. So letting the law lapse won't interfere with his gallant efforts to ensure our safety.