September 12 Forever

Julian Sanchez's take on the FISA fiasco:

Like Bill Murray's hapless weatherman in Groundhog Day, America is locked in a perpetual September 12, 2001. How else to explain this weekend's frenzied passage of a sweeping amendment to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), effectively authorizing the program of extrajudicial wiretaps first approved in secret by President George W. Bush shortly after the terrorist attacks of 2001? How else to make sense of a Democratic Congress capitulating to the demands of a wildly unpopular executive for yet another expansion of government surveillance powers, mere months after the disclosure of the rampant abuses that followed the last such expansion?

The hasty passage of the massive USA PATRIOT Act, a scant 45 days after those attacks, was ill-considered but understandable. Six years later, however, the administration has grown comfortable with the prerogatives panic affords. And, perversely, it has learned that it can continue to wield those prerogatives even under a Democratic majority, provided it insists on regarding Congress always and only as a last resort. [...]

But then, that was almost certainly the point. Ingenious as the White House has proven at recreating the expedient panic of 2001, however, it is not September 12 anymore. Along with a chance to more cooly appraise the terrorist threat, the intervening years have provided ample evidence of how little this administration can be trusted with its existing powers, let alone new ones. When lawmakers return to Washington this coming September, they might try a bit harder to recall the year as well as the month.

It should be kept in mind, however, that most Democrats didn't capitulate at all and of those who did some unknown and unknowable portion probably just agree with Bush that executive power should be essentially unlimited.

Comments

Me thinks one needs to explain the facts in
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/8/8/71452/14802

-Arun

Posted by Arun | August 8, 2007 8:12 AM

This cartoon sums up the situation:
http://miaculpa.blogspot.com/2007/08/diane_08.html

Posted by Arun | August 8, 2007 8:16 AM

Democrats may have some grand scheme for the greater good. Such a scheme may explain their constant capitulation to Bush despite majorities in both houses of Congress. The truth is there is no master plan, no political mechanizations behind their cowardice. They're plainly and simply spineless, clueless and unaccustomed to wielding the reigns of power. They are not the cavalry just over the horizon, ready to charge the enemy and rescue the prairie settlers from certain doom. The settlers die a horrible death in this tragedy. The cavalry sits around the campfire eating beans and farting.

Posted by steve duncan | August 8, 2007 8:17 AM

Extrajudicial wiretaps? What a hoot.

The executive branch has plenary powers vis-a-vis matters of national security; FISA in and of itself is constitutionally dubious. Judges have virtually no intermediary role in (key word)conducting national security. Please reread your constitution.

What transpired here, for the benefit of the clueless E-kneejerkers, was as follows: When Abdullah in Pakistan is conversing with Al Zawahiri in the Sudan and (here's the rub)their telecommunication is circumstantially facilitated through the US (due to our sophisticated technology-now the common practice), FISA is forthwith no longer involved, it remains silent, and a warrant is no longer needed.

Praise the lord.

Congress had the good sense (yes, even the left sometimes awakens) to realize that a simple technological nexus to our shores (state of the art telecommunications and such) does not allow Abdullah and Al Zawahiri, or anyone else, to theoretically assert fourth amendment privileges, rights of privacy or due process. I'm sorry, really, for their unanticipated "extra-judicial" discomfort. Prior to this legislation, FISA guidelines would have required that a warrant be obtained under the noted circumstances and/or(listening to) the phone conversation details would have been denied.

You can relax, pal. Your library privileges are still intact. Please reconfigure the Orwellian cant for the poli-Sci 101 crowd.

Posted by reshufflex | August 8, 2007 8:48 AM

reshufflex channels Goebbels.

Posted by steve duncan | August 8, 2007 8:53 AM

Reshufflex trots out the current Bushite talking point, which ignores that fact that everyone agreed that FISA needed to be changed and that the differences between the Democratic revision and the Republican one that passed have nothing to do with whether we can listen to communications between "Abdullah and Al Zawahiri".

Posted by KCinDC | August 8, 2007 8:58 AM

But Matt, the important point is that the Democratic leadership capitulated and allowed this legislation come to the floor. Congress had a lot on its plate, and the leadership could have easily said to Bush "give us a more reasonable proposal or we're going to put this off to September." Instead, they rushed the legislation to the floor at the absolute last minute, knowing that some of their members would feel compelled to vote for it. Whatever Reid and Pelosi might have said about the legislation, and however they might have voted personally, this legislation wouldn't have gotten to the floor if they didn't want it to, and so they ultimately share some of the blame for its passage.

Posted by Tim | August 8, 2007 9:06 AM

reshufflex-
Read the whole article. It might help you embarrass yourself less spectacularly in the future.

Posted by Julian Sanchez | August 8, 2007 9:19 AM

While reshufflex has embarrassed himself enough, I'll deliver a firm kick to the balls on this one:

FISA in and of itself is constitutionally dubious.

Which explains why Bush demanded its amendment, rather than taking it to the sympathetic DC circuit and Supreme Court. Oh.

As for the frenzy, that's all to do with the presumably-impending revelation of the as-of-now-unacknowledged surveillance and datamining that had been going on. Hence Bush's snitty demand for those 'alleged to have assisted our Nation' (and what a phrase that is) to be immunized.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | August 8, 2007 9:49 AM

The Senate vote was altogether weird: Feinstein, Inouye and Mikulski in favor? A clutch of vulnerable GOPers in 2008 (Coleman, Collins, Smith, Sununu) and Dems not up for reelection until 2012 but subject to heavy blowback from their base (Webb, McCaskill, Klobuchar, Casey) in favor? Intel and defense insiders (Rockefeller, Levin, Biden, Jack Reid) against? Boxer, Kerry, Harkin, Murray, Alexander, Lott, Lugar and McCain not voting?

Democratic cowardice, or "I had a plane to catch," don't strike me as plausible, or at least complete, explanations. My guess is that White House & intel lobbyists made a case - perhaps fleshing out the recent vague public muttering about another terrorist attack - that impressionable/junior Dems found convincing but that most of their senior colleagues didn't buy.

Posted by allbetsareoff | August 8, 2007 9:50 AM

Matt has it backwards. The only unknown is how many of the Dems who voted against the bill did so because they knew it was guaranteed to pass, and so could sell themselves to the base.

At a minimum, we know the Dem leadership was not truly opposed to the bill, because they failed to kill it in committee.

The Blue Dogs and Red States Ds weren't the cynical ones here. They simply were displaying their true colors. It's the others who we don't know about.

Posted by faux facsimile | August 8, 2007 10:11 AM

reshufflex-
Read the whole article. It might help you embarrass yourself less spectacularly in the future

I disagree. I think the money move on debating this issue is to go with the unitary executive/ we can do whatever we want school of thought and then start making up stories about how the FBI would have to clear everything with the ACLU before even starting an investigation.

By comparison a factual point by point defense of the Bush administration position would be complicated for the writer and reader and likely not very compelling to anyone of any political persuasion. As the comment stands it has a decent chance of convincing someone that gets his news from Fox.

Posted by ChristopherColaninno | August 8, 2007 10:21 AM

Why would someone who gets their news from Fox need convincing? And are a lot of such people reading comments on Matt Yglesias to supplement their information?

Posted by KCinDC | August 8, 2007 10:25 AM

The Senate vote was altogether weird

There were a few odd votes in the House outside the Blue Dogs. Artur Davis has been one of the fiercest young Dems in the HJC hearings against Gonzales. He may be from Alabama, but his seat's a lock. There was no political upside to his yes vote.

Emptywheel at TNH wonders if Reid and Pelosi were briefed into the unacknowledged snooping, but that doesn't account for Jane Harman's no vote, since she was part of the Gang Of 8 meeting in March 2004.

The ACLU liaison suggested that Clyburn screwed up the rules process, assuming good faith from the GOP House, and was suckered into a situation where, the Senate having passed its shitty bill and packed up for vacation, the choice was to vote on the Senate bill (hence no conference) or do nothing. The GOP House caucus was certainly at its most sneaky, whiny and petulant, and the accelerated timetable meant it was difficult to organise opposition.

I can't help thinking that McConnell played the Terrah! card, and that, combined with gamesmanship from the GOP congressional leadership, painted the Dems into a corner. Lott's non-vote is even more curious, given his 'get the hell out of DC' comment earlier that week.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | August 8, 2007 11:20 AM

Here is a strange concept; perhaps FISA is good for the security of the country. Perhaps the Dems want to continue to use all the intelligence tools at our disposal to defeat terrorists. I know many right wingers think the Dems are hell bent on brining about the downfall of Bush regardless of the cost to the country. I don't watch Fox and I don't believe the Dems want our country to be attacked to make Bush look bad.

Posted by danceswithgoats | August 8, 2007 11:27 AM

For those of us too apathetic about or eroding civil liberties to read the Sanchez article, does someone care to explain why reshufflex is so off base?

Posted by Harry | August 8, 2007 12:35 PM

reshufflex is off-base because years down the road a corrupt, hardball LBJ/Clintonesque Democratic administration will appoint a corrupt, yes-man to both the Attorney General and the head of NSC positions. Now, they can sign off on whatever wiretaps they want between someone in the US and someone outside the US, without judicial oversight, i.e. no checks or balances. Said corrupt/hardball administrion will use its unchecked wiretapping power to DESTROY its political opponents, i.e. Republicans who reshufflex fancies. (who's to say whether not they - whoops! - "accidently" spy on purely internal US communication.)

The era of Big Government is here to stay.

PS I'd kinda like to see this poetic justice happen.

Posted by Peter K. | August 8, 2007 2:36 PM

You missed a chance to link to another Green Day Video... Wake Me When September Ends.

Posted by DJ | August 8, 2007 2:52 PM