Klobuchar capitulates on FISA wiretapping

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (DFL-MN) joined 16 other Senate Democrats who gave in to President Bush to allow the Bush Administration to wiretap as they wish. President Bush demanded that Congress stay in session until they'd passed a wiretapping bill that would "will give our intelligence community the tools they need to protect the United States." US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales will be responsible for the oversight under this new legislation. The only compromise is that this legislation must be renewed after 1 Friedman Unit.

What galls me so much is that once again on an important issue the Senate and Sen. Klobuchar have caved in to the wishes of the President. A President that is supported by 29% of Minnesotans according to recent polling. All he has to say is boo and Democrat's knees buckle. Why is Klobuchar acquiesing to his fascist intentions? The people do not approve of the way he is running the country, yet she refuses to stand up to him. Why is she not demanding accountability?

I'm so angry I can barely think clearly. I can only think of this vote and her capitulation on the Iraq Supplemental Funding bill. I don't believe that there have been any other votes where Democrats could have stood up to Bush on something that actually mattered. Sorry, but non-binding resolutions and symbolic votes that are sure to fail do not count.

Here's some background about the corner the Bush Administration was getting backed into:

A secret ruling by a federal judge has restricted the U.S. intelligence community's surveillance of suspected terrorists overseas and prompted the Bush administration's current push for "emergency" legislation to expand its wiretapping powers, according to a leading congressman and a legal source who has been briefed on the matter.

The order by a judge on the top-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court has never been publicly acknowledged by administration officials—and the details of it (including the identity of the judge who wrote it) remain highly classified. But the judge, in an order several months ago, apparently concluded that the administration had overstepped its legal authorities in conducting warrantless eavesdropping even under the scaled-back surveillance program that the White House first agreed to permit the FISA court to review earlier this year, said one lawyer who has been briefed on the order but who asked not to be publicly identified because of its sensitivity.
(Newsweek)

There was a compromise bill that the Dems were hashing out with Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, that the Bush Administration quashed.

A key Democrat in the negotiations, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD), says that a deal had in fact been reached with McConnell, who has been busy lobbying Congress on a FISA update all week. "We had an agreement with DNI McConnell," Hoyer spokeswoman Stacey Bernards tells TPMmuckraker, "and then the White House quashed the agreement."

A bill that House Democrats put forward today does not require the National Security Agency to seek warrants for surveillance of persons inside the United States -- only that the Attorney General will issue "guidelines" as to how collecting the communications of U.S. persons should operate.
(TPM Muckraker)

Here are the details of the bill:

Friday night after the Senate approved a measure that would temporarily give the administration more latitude to eavesdrop without court warrants on foreign communications that it suspects may be tied to terrorism.

The House is expected to take up the White House-backed measure on Saturday morning before going into its summer recess.

Democratic leaders acknowledged that the bill would probably pass.

Democrats in both the House and the Senate failed to pass competing measures on Friday that would have included tougher judicial checks and oversight on the eavesdropping powers.
...
The White House lobbying took on new urgency because of a still-classified ruling by the intelligence court this year that placed new restrictions on monitoring without warrants purely foreign communications that are routed through the United States.

Such communications were once considered outside the reach of the court, known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court or the FISA court.
(NY Times)

One of the lone adult and voice of reason, Russ Feingold, had this to say:

"We need to wiretap terrorists, and we should address the problem that has been identified with FISA with respect to foreign-to-foreign communications. But the administration’s overly broad proposal goes far beyond that and would leave critical decisions related to surveillance involving Americans entirely up to the Attorney General. The proposal from the Democratic leadership is better and involves FISA court review from the start. But it does not have adequate safeguards to protect Americans’ privacy. The bill should also include a 90-day sunset to ensure Congress has the chance to identify and fix any problems with this new proposal."
(Feingold's website)

Kagro X at Daily Kos points out that:

There is no reason in the world why this Congress should vote on a FISA bill before they've even been able to decide the very basic issue of whether or not the Attorney General of the United States has been lying to them about some of the very activities addressed by this bill.

It's nuts.

Forget that they're prepared to let charges of contempt of Congress float in the ether, unresolved, while they're out on their break. Although the issues behind those particular episodes of contempt are on the surface, unconnected, they are indicative of a Congress that is still feeling its way in dealing with what is really a very extraordinary situation. We can all understand that. We can register impatience with it, but we understand it.

How is it, though, that this same Congress could then find the resolution to act with such dispatch on a FISA bill that's largely gone unread, even as they're plagued by serious doubts about the fitness of the Attorney General to continue in office because they suspect he has been lying to them about the "administration's" domestic spying activities?
(dKos)

The American Civil Liberties Union doesn't like it:

Caroline Frederickson, head of the American Civil Liberties Union office here, said: "The Democrats caved in to the politics of fear we’re seeing from this administration. They didn’t want to be depicted as soft on terrorism. But this measure removes any court oversight from surveillance on Americans in a large number of cases."
(NY Times)