Senator Pat Roberts (R) - king of obfuscation:

If you watched yesterday's Meet the Press, you witnessed some fine mumbo-jumbo (as Josh Marshall might say). Get a load of this exchange:

MR. RUSSERT: Stop there. Then why not change the [FISA] law

REP. HARMAN: Right.

MR. RUSSERT: ...rather than just ignore it?

SEN. ROBERTS: There was a lull about a year and a half ago, maybe two years ago, where that was considered. And everybody took a look at it and said, “Now wait a minute. If you change the FISA law and you have say a streamlined FISA law on top of FISA, you”—you’ve got to understand that these FISA cases are this thick and on emergency cases they are stacked up and on nonemergency cases even higher, and the time delay, we need action by minutes and hours to stop a terrorist attack. We’re talking about days—days delay. So, consequently, you could do an amendment to FISA to say this particular program does fit under FISA, but it would be a streamlined FISA.

Now, understand that’s only from a call from a foreign terrorist cell, an al-Qaeda terrorist cell to the United States; not a phone call in the United States to another person in the United States. Now, after you do all that, and you got to figure out what committee you go to and what jurisdiction you go to, and how many details you’re going to reveal, and the operational details that you reveal—and I agree with Pete. We’re to the point now where we’re about to lose the capability. That’s the big issue here in terms of going deaf. You’re right back where you started from with a president’s authority that he has under the Constitution, and you have that—the very same thing that you have now.

Taking Robert's comments seriously and breaking it down, here are his reasons why the FISA law shouldn't be changed:

1. It would mean adding a "streamlined FISA" element to the overall FISA program
2. An updated FISA would only apply to phone calls where one party is outside the United States
3. Changing the law requires figuring out what Congressional committee has jurisdiction
4. Changing the law means that Congress has to know some details of the program
5. The U.S. is about to lose the capability to eavesdrop on such calls
6. The president already has the authority to order wiretaps without a warrant

Reasons 1 - 5 don't make the case that FISA shouldn't be changed. That leaves reason six: The president already has the authority, and therefore no law applies. It's John Yoo's position. But it was tucked at the end of a whole lot of nonsense from Roberts.

Russert could have come back at Sen. Roberts and nailed him to the wall for such sloppy argumentation, but instead, he chats it up with Republican Representative Hoekstra: (note the end comment by Roberts)

MR. RUSSERT: But people go back to, Democrats and Republicans, many, to the law, and they’ll say the law is very clear: You cannot engage in this activity unless authorized by statute. Vice President Cheney offered this: “When we were hit on September 11th” he “was granted,” the president, “the authority by Congress to use all necessary means to take on the terrorists. And that’s what we’ve done.” Congressman Hoekstra, do you believe that the authorization to go to war, passed by Congress in 2002, excuse me, September 15, 2001, to go into Afghanistan, to take out al-Qaeda and the Taliban, that authorization granted the president the authority for this eavesdropping program?

REP. HOEKSTRA: Eleven-fifteen 2001 we were concerned about one thing; we were concerned about taking out al-Qaeda. We authorized the president, “If you find bin Laden in Afghanistan or if you find him in Pakistan, you’ve got the authority to take this guy out. You’ve got to—the authority to take out his operatives.” But on one—on 11/15, we were concerned about the operatives in the U.S., his—his operatives.

MR. RUSSERT: September—September 15.

REP. HOEKSTRA: Yeah, September 15, 2001. And to believe that we gave the president the authority to kill bin Laden, but if he was on his cell phone we said, “Oh, but if you want to listen to him calling into the United States, perhaps planning the next attack,” because we didn’t know what that might occur, “I’m sorry, you’ve got to go to the court, and you’ve got to do this one-inch thick document, and you’ve got to have a legal review before you can actually listen to what bin Laden is saying.” Intercepting communications from your enemies is an essential element of war. We’ve—it’s always been a key component conducted in war.

MR. RUSSERT: So you believe the authorization passed in September of 2001 granted the president the authority for eavesdropping.

REP. HOEKSTRA: We gave the president to conduct—we gave the president the necessary authority to use the tools to effectively fight and eliminate al-Qaeda. Absolutely.

SEN. ROBERTS: And he already has that under the Constitution anyway.

Roberts is an example of a member of Congress who is essentially an agent of the executive - willing to toss Congressional power. We saw the same thing when Frist and other Republicans wanted to eliminate the filibuster - which is basically a power that the Senate rules grant to a minority of its members.

It's really surprising to see members of the legislature so willing to transfer their authority to the executive. It's happened before in other times and in other countries, but to see it done here - and by self-proclaimed conservatives! - is truly remarkable.


posted by Quiddity at 2/13/2006 06:59:00 AM