Congressional Democrats are playing silly partisan political games with our lives. Thanks to their stalling, the Protect America Act expired at midnight and we are now demonstrably less safe. How less safe?
Oh, how about we’re only gathering a third of the intelligence we were before midnight.
As of midnight this morning, intelligence gathering powers are now back to where they were before the Protect America Act was passed in August 2007. At that time, according to McConnell, we had lost about two-thirds of our overseas collection capacity because of the FISA court ruling which, for the first time in history, required court authorization for monitoring foreigners outside the U.S. who contact other foreigners outside the U.S.
Don’t take his word for it, though. Or mine.
Listen to Mike McConnell. He’s our head of National Intelligence. He was also Director of the National Security Agency for four years under Bill Clinton, who is hardly a wholly-own subsidiary of Chimpy McBushHitlerBurton, Inc. He’s been doing this a long, long time and he may be the best intelligence person we have in this country.
Listen to the interview or read the transcript. Democratic opposition on this isn’t based on any fair reading of the Constitution or expertise on any common-sense law. It’s opposition to George W. Bush, plain and simple. It’s a cheap way to try to buy a few more votes through deceit and cheap posturing.
It needs to stop. Now.
