Hoist, meet petard.

The “moneybomb” goes off on August 8.

***
Update 2:44pm Eastern. The cloture motion on the FISA bill passes, 72-26.

Update 3:07pm Eastern. FISA reform passes, 69-28. Obama votes yes. Hillary votes no.

***

Jeff Goldstein: You can’t spell “hopeyness” and “changitude” without “capitulation.”

And whither Obama?

I’m keeping an eye on the FISA debate that has been unfolding on the Senate floor. Sen. Orrin Hatch gave a spirited statement taking on the unreality-based FISA reform opponents who “sit in their basements wearing tinfoil hats and who believe 9/11 was an inside job.”

Zing.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller is now reviewing the compromise provisions and, believe it or not, he’s praising Harry Reid for putting national security first–even though Reid opposes the compromise.

The nutroots are seething about those who have flipped and will vote for the FISA compromise.

4:40pm. Standing by for the vote…

4:45pm. Chris Dodd is on the floor whinging about his mortgage boondoggle bill. Mum’s the word on his special “Friend of Mozilo” home loan.

4:55pm Eastern. Dodd finally finished whinging. He needs unanimous consent to proceed with a final vote on the housing bill, but there is one dissenting, maverick Senator holding it up. Bravo, Sen. Jim DeMint. Received this info from his office this afternoon:

In case you missed earlier news, Reid has threatened to delay votes on FISA and War funding until he conservatives agree to let him rush through the lender bailout. Senator DeMint has no intention of allowing Reid to cut debate short on a housing bill that we keep learning more disturbing news about every day (sweetheart deals for senators, bank lobbyists write the bill, fingerprint database of realtors and bank employees, IRS collection of credit card transaction info). As DeMint told reporters just a few minutes ago: “Harry Reid has been holding our national security hostage to force through his liberal agenda.”

eMint Sets Sights on Housing Bill
June 25, 2008, 3:13 p.m.
By Tim Taylor
Roll Call Staff

As the negotiators on the housing bill scramble to deal with what amendments to include in the massive legislation, another battle is brewing that may delay the housing measure altogether.

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) said Wednesday that he believes that the Senate must take its time with the housing bill, perhaps delaying a vote until after the break.

“There are too many questions out there. … I think it would beneficial that we take a fresh look at it after the break,” DeMint said.

DeMint emphasized that he is not “holding up the bill,” but since the White House has taken a hard line against it, he believes that it might as well go through all the procedural hoops before a final tally is taken.

Specifically, DeMint is threatening to force the Senate to jump all of the regular procedural hoops, including the 30 hours of debate typically allotted a bill, that lawmakers usually waive in order to more efficiently consider legislation.

The South Carolina Republican said he wants to “make sure that we have the full debate time on every aspect of this. I don’t think we need to pass it this week before the break, so I don’t intend to allow unanimous consents to shorten the debate time on this bill.”

If DeMint follows through with his threat, the housing bill would not hit the floor until later this week, forcing vote during the weekend or delaying one until after the recess.

DeMint said it would probably be “Saturday or Sunday” if Reid wants to make the Senate jump through all the procedural tangles to pass the measure, which enjoys the broad bipartisan support of more than 80 Members.

For the past week, many GOP Senators have questioned the financial benefit that mortgage house Countrywide would receive in the bill, particularly on the heels of controversy surrounding favorable mortgages received from the lender by Sens. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), the housing bill’s chief sponsor, and Kent Conrad (D-N.D.).

DeMint has threatened to block the bill for some weeks now, arguing that Senators do not fully understand the benefits provided to such financial institutions as Countrywide.

***

Update: Here’s the roll call vote on the cloture motion for the FISA bill, which advances to a final vote tomorrow. Vote was 80-15.

Andrew McCarthy gives the compromise deal thumbs up:

Here is the bottom line: Our intelligence agencies will once again have authority to conduct aggressive monitoring of foreign powers, including terrorist organizations, which threaten the United States. In particular, this will be the case overseas — that is, when foreigners located outside our borders communicate with each other. The Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency will essentially be able to collect foreign intelligence without interference from the courts, the status quo ante that was U.S. law for decades before being upset by a secret court ruling last year.

Moreover, the telecommunications companies which patriotically complied with administration requests for assistance in the emergency conditions that obtained after nearly 3,000 Americans were mass-murdered in the 9/11 attacks will receive retroactive immunity. That is, they will be relieved of the potential billions in liability they (and their shareholders and customers) faced in scores of lawsuits.

The telecoms were sued by the ACLU and other privacy eccentrics because they cooperated in the NSA’s warrantless surveillance of suspected international terrorist communications that crossed U.S. borders — a program the legality of which is richly supported by precedent. Consequently, the American people will be relieved of the vulnerability they would face if industry’s top information technology experts were disincentivized from assisting in our security. (While I have long been a critic of our surveillance laws, I note once again, in the interest of full disclosure, that my wife works for Verizon.)

Contrary to the sky-is-falling hysteria we are likely to hear in the coming days, this immunity is not “blanket.” It benefits only private actors. That is as it should be. This controversy involves the executive and legislative branches of government fighting over ultimate control of surveillance authority. Private actors who merely complied with ostensibly lawful requests should never have been pawns in that political battle. And only those private actors who can show, by “substantial evidence” that they were complying with a written request from government will be afforded immunity.

Attorney General Michael Mukasey has been taken aback by the scope and variety of potential terrorism threats facing the United States, he told reporters Friday at an informal meeting in his office.

“I’m surprised by how surprised I am,” said Mukasey, who as a federal judge presided over terrorism-related trials in New York.

“It’s surprising how varied [the threat] is, how many directions it comes from, how geographically spread out it is,” he said…

…he attorney general said that after meeting with his European law enforcement counterparts last week in Slovenia, he understands their degree of anxiety as well.

“They’re all concerned, and they’re all looking for ways to cooperate with the United States and with one another,” he said.

The attorney general used the occasion to once again urge congressional passage of a measure to update the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. An initial update, termed the Protect America Act, expired last month.

“I never thought I’d see that [expiration] happen,” Mukasey said. “The danger doesn’t fade.”

He also referred to the terrorism updates he receives in early morning national security briefings.

“The people I hear about every morning, their fatwas do not have an expiration date,” Mukasey said.

Put it on a bumper sticker. Or a tattoo.

Pair it with this:

Lan astaslem: Arabic for “I will not submit/surrender”

The House of Representatives voted Friday to back the Democratic-sponsored revisions to federal surveillance laws.

After meeting in secret Thursday night, the House votes Friday on an update to the FISA bill.

The vote was 213 to 197 in favor of a revision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) bill that was backed by the Democratic leadership.

One member voted present.

The vote came after a unique secret session Thursday night in the House. It was the first time the House has met in secret since 1983 .

The Democratic plan would allow telecommunications companies to be sued for their role in the administration’s much-disputed warrantless surveillance program — something that President Bush and GOP allies have railed against.

Bush has spent weeks pressuring the House to grant retroactive legal immunity to the phone companies that took part in the program, initiated after the September 11 attacks.

Bush argues that legal protection is needed for companies to continue cooperating with the government and has vowed to veto the House Democratic proposal, which would allow the lawsuits to move forward in federal courts.

The Senate already has voted to protect the phone companies from lawsuits filed by privacy advocates, who argue that the surveillance program was illegal.

The Democratic plan, however, will allow the companies to argue their cases and present classified evidence to a judge during a closed proceeding without the plaintiffs present.

On Friday, GOP members spoke out against the plan.

“They [Democrats] know, they know the risks they are taking on behalf of the American people and they don’t care … and that’s what bothers me most,” said Republican Rep. Heather Wilson of New Mexico on Friday.

A joint statement from the Department of Justice and the office of the director of national intelligence said that based on initial reports, “We are concerned that the proposal would not provide the intelligence community the critical tools needed to protect the country.”

We’re back to where we started, living in a 9/10 world.

GOP Whip Roy Blunt’s office e-mails:

House Republican Whip Roy Blunt (Mo.) issued the following statement today after all but 13 Democrats endorsed their leadership’s latest attempt to push through a surveillance bill the Senate will not pass, the president will not sign, and the U.S. intelligence community has deemed unacceptable:

“Even for a Congress with a proven record of over-reaching, the majority’s decision to play politics with critical terrorist surveillance legislation is deeply disappointing. And as they force through another ill-fated and poorly conceived FISA bill today, it’s worth wondering how many intelligence agents would have to testify that vital information is being lost before Democrats hear their message, and finally take up the bipartisan Senate-passed bill.

“Nearly a year has passed since the director of national intelligence identified the need to modernize our outdated surveillance laws, and asked Congress to work with him on finding a workable solution. The Senate has done its part, working with the administration to produce a bill that balances national security with protecting individual rights. But until the House decides to follow suit, our intelligence capabilities will continue to dim – until our agents reach the point where they find themselves completely in the dark.

“It’s my sincere hope the two-week Easter recess imparts in Democrats perspective on this issue they currently do not have. Maybe then they’ll decide to bring forth the bipartisan Senate bill for passage – legislation that arms our intelligence agents with the tools they need to keep us safe, while ensuring the firms that aided our country in the days following September 11th aren’t rewarded for their patriotism with a lawsuit.”

House GOP leader John Boehner’s office points out that the Dems admit their bill is gesture politics:

Lest anyone believe that today’s House vote on new Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) legislation is about anything other than politics, this morning’s CongressDaily AM makes the point crystal clear: even Democratic aides admit the bill – which is only being offered to give Democratic Members something to talk about in their districts – will never become law…

Here’s the roll call.

The NRCC is urging citizens to sign a petition pressuring the Dems to act:

It was over three weeks ago that House Democrats allowed the terrorist surveillance program to expire, and in the dead of the night on February 16, 2008, every single American became less safe. To make matters worse, the following week the House of Representatives skipped town for a ten-day vacation, leaving the security of our nation in limbo.

Since then, Democrats have maneuvered through desperate stall tactics to block the Protect America Act, knowing that it would pass with overwhelming bipartisan support like the Senate bill did earlier in February, by a vote of 68-29. Every member of the Blue Dog Coalition, which consists of 21 moderate House Democrats wrote to House Speaker Pelosi and said “the consequences of not passing such a measure could place our national security at undue risk” (Bloomberg, 2/13/08).

Why do the House Democrats want to keep our intelligence community weak? The answer is quite simple – many House Democrats have received thousands of dollars in campaign contributions by the trial lawyer lobby, and Democrats are working hard to prolong their boon to trial lawyers, who are tying up the court system with frivolous lawsuits against telecommunications companies who carried out their patriotic duty to assist in terrorist surveillance in the wake of September 11th.

It is unconscionable that the House Democrat Leadership would play politics with our national security. The Protect America Act expired almost a month ago and has hindered our ability to intercept conversations between those linked to suspected terrorist networks.

That’s why it’s critical that you sign our petition, so we can demand the Democrats bring this legislation to the floor.

In response to the hard-hitting truth, Democrats have made outrageous claims citing the non-apparent need for the Protect America Act. Sylvestre Reyes, the Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, in a letter to President Bush, stated that the intelligence community could still expand surveillance and be adequately prepared to handle any potential threats against our country. Unfortunately, the truth is much scarier.

The expired provisions under the Protect America Act do not give our intelligence community the ability to use existing certifications under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to cover future unknown threats against the United States. The Protect America Act allows the intel community the speedy and agile methods it needs to collect information on future terrorist suspects and organizations.

House GOP leader John Boehner weighs in here.

***
President Bush has scheduled a press conference for 10:05am Eastern this morning to prod the Dems to pass permanent FISA reform.

David Reinhard watches while Pelosi’s House sleeps.

The blabbermouth Dems want wider access to classifed info. Via The Hill:

Liberal House Democrats are pushing for a closed session to discuss the legal underpinnings of President Bush’s intelligence surveillance program.

They believe that the more members know about it, the less likely they will be to support Bush’s wish to make it permanent.

“I haven’t heard anything in closed session that makes me think we need the Protect America Act,” said Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.), an Intelligence Committee member, referring to a White House-backed interim wiretapping bill that lapsed this month. “Or that FISA [the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act], with modest modifications, isn’t the way to go into the future.”

The request for the closed session came in a letter coauthored by Holt and Reps. John Tierney (D-Mass.) and Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). Holt refused to confirm the letter, but other Democrats say it was brought up at Tuesday’s Democratic Caucus meeting.

The three want all members allowed to see documents that outline the administration’s legal opinions on the program. So far, only Intelligence and Judiciary Committee members have been allowed to see them.

The three believe it is impractical to have all members go to the secure offices of the Intelligence Committee to review the documents. Instead, they want a presentation before the whole House, but in a closed session because the information is classified.

It’s another stall tactic.

Boehner’s spokesman, Kevin Smith, derided the secret session proposal as a stalling tactic.

“There are clear rules and procedures for how Congress handles classified information,” Smith said. “This nonsense is nothing more than another stalling tactic from a bunch of liberals who don’t want to give our intelligence officials all the tools they need to keep America safe.”

Welcome to the backsliding.

House Republicans tried again Tuesday to force a floor vote on Senate-passed legislation to overhaul the nation’s electronic surveillance law.

But Democrats stood fast, insisting that negotiations continue between the House and Senate on a compromise version of the legislation.

By 212-198, the House quashed the Republican effort on a procedural vote.

House and Senate Democrats are negotiating over the legislation, but Republicans and the Bush administration are boycotting those talks. Republicans say the House should simply clear the Senate version of the measure instead. The Senate passed that bill Feb. 12 by 68-29.

“Congress needs to act immediately,” said Rep. Pete Sessions , R-Texas. He said House Republicans will try every day to bring up the Senate-passed version, which also has the backing of 21 Blue Dog Democrats.

President Bush lambastes the Democrats on FISA again:

President Bush on Monday lobbied again for an intelligence law allowing government eavesdropping on phone calls and e-mails, as the tone of the dispute between the White House and Congress over terrorist surveillance grew increasingly sharp.

“To put it bluntly, if the enemy is calling into America, we really need to know what they’re saying, and we need to know what they’re thinking, and we need to know who they’re talking to,” Bush said at the start of his annual meeting with the nation’s governors at the White House.

“This is a different kind of struggle than we’ve ever faced before. It’s essential that we understand the mentality of these killers,” Bush said.

The law in question targets foreign terrorist threats and allows eavesdropping on communications involving people in the U.S., so long as those people are not the intended focus or target of the surveillance. The latest version of the legislation expired on Feb. 16, and the rules reverted to those outlined in the 30-year-old Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Bush and Congress are at odds over whether to give legal immunity to companies that in the past helped the government spy on customers without court warrants…

…Democrats, in an op-ed piece Monday in The Washington Post, accused Bush of resorting to “scare tactics and political games.”

“It is clear that he and his Republican allies, desperate to distract attention from the economy and other policy failures, are trying to use this issue to scare the American people into believing that congressional Democrats have left America vulnerable to terrorist attack,” said the article.

The piece was signed by Democratic Sens. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee; Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee; Democratic Reps. Silvestre Reyes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee; and John Conyers, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

White House press secretary Dana Perino responded to their op-ed with her own statement. Perino said that Bush is not using scare tactics, but rather repeating the concerns of the intelligence community about the risks to the nation. “Unless this threat is taken more seriously in Congress, the ability to obtain the intelligence we need will be at risk, and with it our national security,” Perino said.

Later, speaking to reporters, Perino said the Democrats’ use of the phrase “scare tactics” must “be like one of their favorite words — it must poll very well, because they use it almost every time. What we have done is state facts.”

You may recall in December 2005 when the blabbermouths at the NYTimes revealed a classified program set up by the Bush administration monitor terrorist communications in the US (which inspired an entire gallery of media blabbermouth posters like the one above). The ACLU quickly and literally followed suit to kill the program.

Well, the outcome of their obstructionist efforts is just across the wires:

The Supreme Court has rejected a challenge to the Bush administration’s domestic spying program. The justices’ decision Tuesday includes no comment explaining why they turned down the appeal from the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU wanted the court to allow a lawsuit by the group and individuals over the warrantless wiretapping program. An appeals court dismissed the suit because the plaintiffs cannot prove their communications have been monitored. The government has refused to turn over information about the closely guarded program that could reveal who has been under surveillance.

Reuters has more:

The American Civil Liberties Union had asked the justices to hear the case after a lower court ruled the ACLU, other groups and individuals that sued the government had no legal right to do so because they could not prove they had been affected by the program.

The civil liberties group also asked the nation’s highest court to make clear that Bush does not have the power under the U.S. Constitution to engage in intelligence surveillance within the United States that Congress has expressly prohibited.

“The president is bound by the laws that Congress enacts. He may disagree with those laws, but he may not disobey them,” Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU’s National Security Project, said in the appeal.

Bush authorized the program to monitor international phone calls and e-mails of U.S. citizens without first obtaining a court warrant. The program’s disclosure in December 2005 caused a political uproar among Democrats, some Republicans and civil liberties activists. The administration abandoned the program about a year ago, putting it under the surveillance court that Congress created more than 30 years ago. The high court’s action means that Bush will be able to disregard whatever legislative eavesdropping restrictions Congress adopts as there will be no meaningful judicial review, the ACLU attorneys said.

The journalists, scholars, attorneys and national advocacy groups that filed the lawsuit said the illegal surveillance had disrupted their ability to communicate with sources and clients.

You can’t connect the dots if you don’t collect them.

Flashback: The left’s selective outrage over privacy invasion.

Look for the ACLU to go after Amtrack’s newly announced random bag search policy.

***
Background:

Federal Judge Rules Bush Surveillance Program Unconstitutional
Newsflash: NSA Doing Its Job
Finally: Justice Dept. Opens NSA Leak Probe
In Defense of the NSA
The New York Times Strikes Again
NSA and the Law: What the Times Didn’t Print
Red Alert: Chicken Littles on the Loose
Sorry NYT, America is OK With NSA

This is the president’s radio address this morning. Maybe Nancy Pelosi will read it on her Blackberry during her social appointments this weekend.

RADIO ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT TO THE NATION

THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. At the stroke of midnight tonight, a vital intelligence law that is helping protect our nation will expire. Congress had the power to prevent this from happening, but chose not to.

The Senate passed a good bill that would have given our intelligence professionals the tools they need to keep us safe. But leaders in the House of Representatives blocked a House vote on the Senate bill, and then left on a 10-day recess.

Some congressional leaders claim that this will not affect our security. They are wrong. Because Congress failed to act, it will be harder for our government to keep you safe from terrorist attack. At midnight, the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence will be stripped of their power to authorize new surveillance against terrorist threats abroad. This means that as terrorists change their tactics to avoid our surveillance, we may not have the tools we need to continue tracking them — and we may lose a vital lead that could prevent an attack on America.

In addition, Congress has put intelligence activities at risk even when the terrorists don’t change tactics. By failing to act, Congress has created a question about whether private sector companies who assist in our efforts to defend you from the terrorists could be sued for doing the right thing. Now, these companies will be increasingly reluctant to provide this vital cooperation, because of their uncertainty about the law and fear of being sued by class-action trial lawyers.

For six months, I urged Congress to take action to ensure this dangerous situation did not come to pass. I even signed a two-week extension of the existing law, because members of Congress said they would use that time to work out their differences. The Senate used this time productively — and passed a good bill with a strong, bipartisan super-majority of 68 votes. Republicans and Democrats came together on legislation to ensure that we could effectively monitor those seeking to harm our people. And they voted to provide fair and just liability protection for companies that assisted in efforts to protect America after the attacks of 9/11.

The Senate sent this bill to the House for its approval. It was clear that if given a vote, the bill would have passed the House with a bipartisan majority. I made every effort to work with the House to secure passage of this law. I even offered to delay my trip to Africa if we could come together and enact a good bill. But House leaders refused to let the bill come to a vote. Instead, the House held partisan votes that do nothing to keep our country safer. House leaders chose politics over protecting the country — and our country is at greater risk as a result.

House leaders have no excuse for this failure. They knew all along that this deadline was approaching, because they set it themselves. My administration will take every step within our power to minimize the damage caused by the House’s irresponsible behavior. Yet it is still urgent that Congress act. The Senate has shown the way by approving a good, bipartisan bill. The House must pass that bill as soon as they return to Washington from their latest recess.

At this moment, somewhere in the world, terrorists are planning a new attack on America. And Congress has no higher responsibility than ensuring we have the tools to stop them.

Thank you for listening.

***

The FISA clock is ticking. At midnight, the stopgap Protect America Act (PAA) surveillance reform measure expires. The Democrats are shrugging their shoulders. Paging San Fran Nan…never mind.

Andy McCarthy calls bull and lays out the impact of hampered intelligence-gathering:

Can you see what’s happening here? The whole reason Congress enacted the PAA in the first place is because FISA was never meant to apply to foreigners outside the U.S. communicating with other foreigners outside the U.S. We are not supposed to need court authorization for that. We are not supposed to have to write affidavits, approved by the attorney general and others, demonstrating probable cause that such people are agents of foreign powers — as well as demonstrating that other alternative investigative techniques would not yield the same intelligence.

Those are protections afforded by the FISA statute. Foreigners outside the U.S. are supposed to be outside the protection of the FISA statute, just as they are outside the protection of the Constitution. Saying the government can go to the FISA court is no answer: Government is not supposed to have to go to the FISA court. These people are not supposed to have FISA rights. They are not supposed to have Fourth Amendment rights.

We are talking about thousands upon thousands of communications, totally outside the U.S. (in the sense that no person inside our country is a participant) which the intelligence community used to be able to intercept and sift through without any burdensome judicial procedures whatsoever. That is how FISA was written, and that is how FISA was understood for almost 30 years. Then last year, a secret FISA-court ruling attempted to bring all those communications under FISA-court control — apparently on the theory that, because some digital bits of these conversations may zoom through U.S. hubs in global telecommunications networks, somehow a conversation between a guy in Pakistan and a guy in Afghanistan should now be considered a U.S. wire communication.

But FISA was not intended to protect Pakistanis and Afghans. It was intended to protect people inside the U.S. from being subjected to national-security surveillance absent probable cause that they were acting as foreign agents.

Requiring FISA compliance for foreign-to-foreign communications does not protect anyone inside the U.S. It protects non-Americans, some of whom will be terrorists and none of whom is entitled to any protection under American law. It makes it impossible for the intelligence community to monitor all the foreign-to-foreign communications that we used to monitor because we will never be able to show, for every target, probable cause that he is an agent of a foreign power — as FISA requires. The PAA did not call for that; it simply required a certification that we were monitoring people believed to be outside the United States.

The claim that the expiration of the PAA will not open a huge gap in surveillance coverage is laughable. Right now, we are permitted to collect foreign-to-foreign communications absent probable cause that the target is an agent of a foreign power. As of 12:00 A.M., we will no longer be permitted to do that. It is absurd to suggest that this huge drop-off in collection will have no impact on our security.

Obstructionism has consequences–deadly consequences.

A US Army Infantry Platoon leader has a message for Congress:

Today, because Congress failed to act, our intelligence officials no longer have the legal authority to collect foreign intelligence. Exactly the type of intelligence that disrupted several planned terrorists attacks on the United States. Because we face a very real threat to the national security of this country, we must take very real measures to protect our citizens and give our soldiers and our allies around the world the tools they need to keep us safe.

When will our Congress begin to display even a small amount of the courage that our men women fighting for us display day in and day out? Their refusal to reauthorize this legislation is more than an act of submission to trial lawyers, Moveon.org, and the far-left wing of a party that fails to recognize that we face deadly threats from radical Islamic terrorists. Its an act of political cowardice. It’s a sign of an unwillingness to respect the sacrifices made by the members of the military who need that intelligence to successfully accomplish their mission.

***
Can the Beltway still be living in a September 10 world? I’ve kept you updated on the latest FISA shenanigans by Democrats who would rather let the nation’s surveillance laws lapse to benefit their presidential candidates than agree to a permanent fix. Andy McCarthy rings the alarm bell on the latest:

I am hearing from several sources that the House is planning to recess on Friday without taking up the Senate bill. That would mean the lapse of our surveillance authority at midnight.

This is a game of roulette with our national security, spearheaded by the Democratic leadership in the House, which is following the lead of the party’s two presidential contenders, Sens. Obama and Clinton. Both of them voted against the emergency authorization last summer, and Obama voted against the Senate bill on Tuesday (Clinton did not bother to vote). Make no mistake. The MoveOn.org crowd is calling the shots on that side of the aisle.

President Bush has to keep pounding this, as does Sen. McCain. This is not politics, folks. For grown-ups, this is life and death.

Not just for grown-ups.

For your children and my children.

Call your Senators (and Congressional Reps!: 202-224-3121.

It is good to see President Bush and the Republicans standing their ground and reaffirming that there are still differences left between the two major political parties. In the wake of the Senate Dems’ retreat on FISA, Bush is pressuring House Democrats to send him a permanent FISA fix–not the same, old temporary band-aids.

The Hill reports on the showdown:

In a move that puts great pressure on the House, President Bush said Wednesday that he would not sign any more temporary extensions to legislation updating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

Bush praised the Senate for passing a long-term FISA fix Tuesday by a “wide, bipartisan” majority. He added that there is “no reason” why the House could not “immediately” pass the same bill.

Congress last summer passed a FISA update but, in the hopes of revisiting the issue, included a sunset provision that would have let it expire earlier this year. When work on a long-term bill was not completed by the deadline, congressional leaders and the White House agreed to a two-week extension.

However, Bush’s statement indicates that he has had enough. He blasted the House for having “failed to pass a good bill” since last summer.

GOP whip Roy Blunt sends the following statement:

House Republican Whip Roy Blunt (Mo.) issued the following statement today after the president announced that, should House Democrats attempt to further delay a vote on fixing the terrorist loophole in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), he will veto the 21-day extension the majority reportedly will attempt to pass this afternoon:

“That the majority would continue to drag its feet on closing the terrorist loophole in FISA is nothing new; the last six months have shown them quite adept at kicking the can down the road, all the while hoping never to find its end.

“Fortunately for the American people, today is where that road ends. And, as the president warned this morning: if Democrats attempt to sneak through another temporary, short-term bill, they’ll find a vetoed piece of legislation on the other end.

“Six-months have passed since Democrats first sought to avert their attention from the urgent needs of our intelligence community. In that time, we’ve seen temporary patches on the heels of short-term fixes on the backs of emergency stopgaps. But not once have we seen a legitimate attempt at a genuine, long-term fix for the gaping loophole that persists today.

“It’s time the majority comes to the realization that passing a long-term fix to the terrorist loophole – that also extends protection to companies that cooperated with our intelligence agencies following 9/11 – is the only responsible course of action. And if they can’t arrive at the conclusion themselves, perhaps Republicans in the House can help them to it.”

Update 1:15pm Eastern. Just in from John Boehner’s office…

House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) issued the following statement on the decision by House Democratic leaders to consider another temporary extension of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) instead of passing the bipartisan, Senate-passed bill:

“The refusal of House Democratic leaders to promptly consider the bipartisan Senate bill is the height of irresponsibility. A bipartisan majority in the U.S. Senate joined together yesterday to give our intelligence officials all the tools they need to keep America safe while adding appropriate liability protections for patriotic third parties who have helped us defend our country. A group of Blue Dog Democrats has written to Speaker Pelosi, asking her to schedule this bill for quick passage on the House floor. And President Bush is fully prepared to sign the measure into law. So, it is clear that only a small group of House Democratic leaders stand in the way of making this critical national security legislation the law of the land.

“Our terrorist surveillance laws are critical to keeping our nation safe from attack, and until we modernize them, our intelligence officials will be at a significant disadvantage against the terrorists who threaten our way of life. The Senate-passed bill would modernize these laws in the long-term so intelligence officials – not government lawyers – are entrusted to protect our national security. President Bush has said he will not sign another temporary measure that only kicks the can farther down the road, and I stand behind that decision.

“The Majority has played games with FISA modernization for months on end, and today, those games must end. Delaying action on a long-term modernization bill puts our national security at risk. It’s time for House Democratic leaders to do the right thing and allow the House to consider the Senate’s bipartisan bill so President Bush can sign it into law.”

I’ve been keeping you up-to-date on the FISA fight in the Senate (see here and here). This morning, a series of votes took place and you’ll be happy to know that the defeatist Dems were defeated.

Carter Wood at the NAM’s ShopFloor blog sums up the votes:

The Senate has just rejected an amendment to S. 2248, the FISA amendments legislation, by Sens. Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Russell Feingold (D-WI) that would have stripped out the retroactive immunity for telecommunication companies.

The vote was 31-67. Roll Call vote here.

This is a clear statement in favor of effective, legal surveillance of suspected terrorists overseas, and an endorsement of good corporate citizens aiding in the protection of Americans. A very important vote…

…UPDATE (12:13 p.m.) Second string of Kos commentary here. Quotes e-mail from Senator Reid’s office: “If, as appears likely, none of the amendments to strike or modify the provisions of the bill concerning retroactive immunity are adopted, we expect Sen. Reid to oppose cloture and oppose final passage of the bill.”

UPDATE (12:34 p.m.): Cloture invoked, 69-29. Senate now breaks.

The Senate Roll Coll votes are here.

Dow Jones dispatch reports:

The U.S. Senate Tuesday voted down an amendment to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that aimed to strip out immunity for telecommunications companies alleged to have cooperated with the government’s warrantless wiretapping program.

The result of the vote makes it increasingly likely that phone companies will receive retroactive immunity from civil lawsuits over their involvement in the controversial wiretapping program.

The development comes even though Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and other senior Democrats have argued in favor of the amendment.

The vote was 67-31 against removing the immunity provision.

The Senate has been divided over the legislation underpinning the warrantless wiretapping program for weeks. At the heart of the debate has been over whether the phone companies should be sheltered from the dozens of lawsuits they potentially face.

The amendment was backed by Sens. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., and Russell Feingold, D-Wis.

In last-minute arguments before the vote, Dodd pointed out that three out of four Congressional committees that had considered the immunity issue had decided against granting retroactive legal cover to the phone companies.

Only the Senate Intelligence Committee’s version of the FISA legislation includes an immunity provision. It is that version which is currently on the Senate floor. Last year, the House approved legislation which made no mention of immunity.

Even if the final Senate bill includes immunity, the matter will have to decided at a meeting between leaders of both houses of Congress to resolve differences over legislation.

The White House has threatened to veto any bill that doesn’t include immunity for the phone companies.

Lawmakers hope to conclude voting on the FISA legislation later Tuesday.

The nutroots are despondent. Profanity-spewing despondent. See here and more here.

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Ed Morrissey:

Telecom immunity should have never taken this long to approve. The immunity covers companies who received assurances from the Department of Justice that their cooperation broke no laws, and they cooperated to help defend the US from attack. Their reward for trust and assistance should not be billion-dollar class-action lawsuits, which would have been nothing more than a back-door attempt to kneecap intelligence operations that kept this nation safe for more than six years after 9/11.

The House has to put this bill into motion now, and the clock is ticking. The Democrats set up these sunset provisions as a means to pressure the White House, and once again they have had the opposite effect. Faced against bipartisan agreement in the Senate on immunity, expect the House to quietly acquiesce.

John Boeher’s office sent me the following this morning:

It speaks volumes about the national security priorities of congressional Democrats that they have failed to permanently close the terrorist loophole. And it certainly speaks volumes that they have failed to do so because they have bowed to the demands of those on the Left seeking to derail common sense terrorist surveillance laws that would help keep our country safe from attack.

With the deadline coming this Saturday, will Democratic leaders finally work with Republicans to permanently close the terrorist loophole in our nation’s terrorist surveillance laws and extend appropriate liability protections for third parties who have stepped up to the plate in the interest of our national security? Or will the Majority’s allies on the Left demand that Congress backs down from this responsibility once again, kicking the can even farther down the road while the safety of Americans at home and abroad hangs in the balance?

Update 7:30pm Eastern. The Senate passes FISA reform. 68-29, with three not voting (Clinton, Graham, and Obama). Roll here.

Details:

The 68-29 Senate vote Tuesday to update the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act belied the nearly two months of stops and starts and bitter political wrangling that preceded it. The two sides had battled to balance civil liberties with the need to conduct surveillance on potential adversaries.

At issue is the government’s post-9/11 Terrorist Surveillance Program, which circumvented a secret court created 30 years ago to oversee such activities. The court was part of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a law written in response to government abuse of its surveillance authority against Americans.

The surveillance law has been updated repeatedly since then. Congress hastily adopted a FISA modification in August in the face of dire warnings from the White House that changes in telecommunications technology and FISA court rulings were dangerously constraining the government’s ability to intercept terrorist communications.

Shortly after its passage, privacy and civil liberties groups said the new law gave the government unprecedented authority to spy on Americans, particularly those who communicate with foreigners.

That law, already extended once, expires Feb. 16.

Doubtful they can work out the differences in the bills by then, Democrats in both the Senate and the House prepared short-term extensions that would keep the law in effect for several more weeks. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky blocked an extension attempt Tuesday. Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, the senior Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, said Republicans in the House would fight another extension and said Bush would not sign it.

On the way to passage, the Senate rejected by a vote of 67-31 a move to strip away a grant of retroactive legal immunity for the companies. It also rejected two amendments that sought to water down the immunity provision.

One of the amendments, co-sponsored by Republican Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, would have substituted the government for the telecom companies in lawsuits, allowing the court cases to go forward but shifting the cost and burden of defending the program.

The other, pushed by California Democrat Dianne Feinstein, would have given a secret court that oversees government surveillance inside the United States the power to dismiss lawsuits if it found that the companies acted in good faith and on the request of the president or attorney general.

While giving the White House what it wanted on immunity, the Senate also expanded the power of the court to oversee government eavesdropping on Americans. The amendment would give the FISA court the authority to monitor whether the government is complying with procedures designed to protect the privacy of innocent Americans whose telephone or computer communications are captured during surveillance of a foreign target.

The bill would also require FISA court orders to eavesdrop on Americans who are overseas. Under current law, the government can wiretap or search the possessions of anyone outside the United States — even a soldier serving overseas — without court permission if it believes the person may be a foreign agent.