Senate Passes Administration Bill

[ProSense]

Senate Passes Administration Bill (UPDATED with Link to S.1927)

Marty Lederman

So much for the Democratic/DNI bill. Ancient history. We're back to a White House-penned bill now, S.1927.

Before the vote, the head of the Intelligence Committee, Jay Rockefeller, "excoriated" the White House bill, saying it "provides a weak and practically nonexistent court review."

And then the Senate passed the bill, 60-28. (The bill reportedly is operative for only six months.) Every Republican voted for the bill, as did 16 Democrats (Lincoln AR; Prior AR; Feinstein CA; Salazar CO; Carper DE; Nelson FL; Inouye HI; Bayh IN; Landrieu LA; Mikulski MD; Mccaskill MI; Klobuchar MN; Conrad ND; Nelson NE; Casey PA; Webb VA) and Joe Lieberman -- roll call vote here.

House vote tomorrow. The Republican strategy? Comments such as this, from the chief Republican on the Judiciary Committee, Lamar Smith: "I hope that there are no attacks before we are able to effectively update this important act."

We'll have more analysis of the bill itself later, time permitting.

Secret ruling limited spying efforts

Move to amend FISA sparked by judge's decision

By Carol D. Leonnig and Ellen Nakashima
Updated: 3:04 a.m. ET Aug 3, 2007

A federal intelligence court judge earlier this year secretly declared a key element of the Bush administration's wiretapping efforts illegal, according to a lawmaker and government sources, providing a previously unstated rationale for fevered efforts by congressional lawmakers this week to expand the president's spying powers.

House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) disclosed elements of the court's decision in remarks Tuesday to Fox News as he was promoting the administration-backed wiretapping legislation. Boehner has denied revealing classified information, but two government officials privy to the details confirmed that his remarks concerned classified information.

The judge, whose name could not be learned, concluded early this year that the government had overstepped its authority in attempting to broadly surveil communications between two locations overseas that are passed through routing stations in the United States, according to two other government sources familiar with the decision.

The decision was both a political and practical blow to the administration, which had long held that all of the National Security Agency's enhanced surveillance efforts since 2001 were legal. The administration for years had declined to subject those efforts to the jurisdiction of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, and after it finally did so in January the court ruled that the administration's legal judgment was at least partly wrong.

Monitoring of foreign calls, emails blocked
The practical effect has been to block the NSA's efforts to collect information from a large volume of foreign calls and e-mails that passes through U.S. communications nodes clustered around New York and California. Both Democrats and Republicans have signaled they are eager to fix that problem through amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

<...>

Democrats announced this week a proposal that would also expand the government's wiretapping authority but would keep it under FISA court supervision. The authority would expire in six months.

more

Senator Harry Reid:

Senate Democrats worked in good faith with the Director of National Intelligence to produce the Rockefeller-Levin bill that was tough on terrorists, provided much-need oversight of the Attorney General, and did not infringe on the constitutional rights of American citizens. Rather than pass this bill, my Republican colleagues chose to rubberstamp a flawed Administration proposal that fails to provide the accountability needed in light of the Administration’s repeated past mismanagement of key tools in the war on terror.

Senator Jay Rockefeller:

My opposition to the final bill was based on the fact that it did not include the privacy protections and safeguards American citizens deserve and expect.

We had the opportunity to pass a more careful bill that would have given the DNI the authority he requested, while also protecting the rights of U.S. citizens.

Instead, this bill undermines the FISA Court and concedes unprecedented authority to the Attorney General.

On the blogs:

ACLU
Digby
Daily Kos[br />Think Progress

[Robbien]

1. Harry Reid's cop out.

Whine. They voted for the wrong bill.

Sen. Reid, YOU are the one responsible for bringing that bill up for a vote. YOU are the one who didn't rein in the 12 Dem votes. YOU are responsible. I blame YOU and the twelve proBush Dem voters.

[Hubert Flottz]

2. I think Bush must know that Harry wears Pampers too???

[Robbien]

6. I'm not buying that

The idea that Cheney may be twisting arms because of blackmail is also too convenient a copout.

Reid did what he did because he is a politician and something is in it for him. And as a politician, he is hedging his bets in face of possible criticism by whining and flinging blame elsewhere.

[Hubert Flottz]

7. Nothing but a dummycrat could have voted for more power for

Gonzo. Harry didn't want to disrupt his vacation to save the Constitution...

[RandiFan1290]

4. What are you talking about???

Everyone knows this is the fault of Cindy Sheehan and the impeachment crowd.

:sarcasm:

[ananda]

3. What a disgusting cave-in!

Yes, the Senate Dems caved!

This cave-in has been reported for the last couple of days,
yet someone kept telling us no they weren't really going to
cave in because of somethng Leahy said.

Well, they did! Shocking.. appalling.. disgusting..

.. but not surprising.

[radfringe]

5. word for '08 (s)elections

(assuming votes are accurately counted)

TABO08: Throw All the Bums Out '08