Kevin flags this op-ed by Mike McConnell saying that FISA needs to be amended and "improved to reflect technological advancement. Kevin seems bewildered by the sudden urgency, since the president could have put forth amendments to FISA and run them through the Congress at any point in the past six years.
Kevin's right that the urgency is suspicious, but there's no reason to be bewildered. Under the Republican controlled Congresses of 2001-2006--when he could have passed just about anything he wanted--George Bush didn't suggest any amendments to FISA because nobody with any power was going to give a shit if he just ignored FISA altogether. Which is what he did. Now that there's real oversight--and that he can't just advance any old piece of rotten legislation that he wants without a fight--it makes perfect sense for his director of national intelligence to throw up objections to FISA, whether he believes those objections or not. That way they can at least make judicial reviews (the nuisance!) less likely to throw up obstacles to their explicit motivations.
Comments