Wonder of wonders, it appears the Democrats have come to grips with the fact that they are losing, and would lose any fight about the NSA wiretaps.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. surveillance laws should be reviewed and possibly rewritten to allow the type of eavesdropping that U.S. President George W. Bush has been criticized for authorizing, lawmakers from both parties said on Sunday.
Democrats and some Republicans have said the Bush administration’s classified warrantless eavesdropping program is illegal. The White House has strongly defended the National Security Agency surveillance as both legal and essential. The Senate Judiciary Committee starts hearings on the issue on February 6.
Why the change of heart? You guessed it, good ole’ Osama:
An audio tape by Osama bin Laden that emerged last week threatening new attacks on the United States has heightened security concerns. Neither party can afford to be seen as failing to protect the country, particularly as corruption scandals and public questioning of the Iraq war loom over November’s congressional elections.
Lawmakers on several Sunday talk shows said that if the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) does not give Bush the tools and legal framework he needs to monitor potential threats, the president should ask Congress to change the law rather than bypass it.
Bush didn’t bypass anything, the Constitution gives him the authority and he doesn’t need to ask anyone anything.
Massachusetts Democrat John Kerry, who endorsed former Vice President Al Gore’s call for an independent investigation of the Bush program, said on ABC’s “This Week” that some Republicans like Bush adviser Karl Rove are trying to equate Democratic opposition to warrantless spying as weakness.
“What he’s (Rove) trying to pretend is somehow Democrats don’t want to eavesdrop appropriately to protect the country. That’s a lie,” Kerry said. “We’re prepared to eavesdrop wherever and whenever necessary in order to make America safer.”
But Kerry said the spying has to be legal and constitutional and if Bush needs the law to be changed, “then come to us and tell us… There is a way to protect the Constitution and not go off on your own and violate it.”
Oh give me a break. The fourth amendment does not include terrorists overseas who are calling our shores to talk to their cohorts. The Constitution gives the President the authority as Commander in Chief to protect our country against foreign agents. The Troung case decided in 1980 by the fourth circuit says as much:
The defendants raise a substantial challenge to their convictions by arguing that the surveillance conducted by the FBI violated the Fourth Amendment and that all the evidence uncovered through that surveillance must consequently be suppressed. As has been stated, the government did not seek a warrant for the eavesdropping on Truong?s phone conversations or the bugging of his apartment. Instead, it relied upon a ?foreign intelligence? exception to the Fourth Amendment?s warrant requirement. In the area of foreign intelligence, the government contends, the President may authorize surveillance without seeking a judicial warrant because of his constitutional prerogatives in the area of foreign affairs.
[…]For several reasons, the needs of the executive are so compelling in the area of foreign intelligence, unlike the area of domestic security, that a uniform warrant requirement would, following [United States v. United States District Court, 407 U.S. 297 (1972)], ?unduly frustrate? the President in carrying out his foreign affairs responsibilities. First of all, attempts to counter foreign threats to the national security require the utmost stealth, speed and secrecy. A warrant requirement would add a procedural hurdle that would reduce the flexibility of executive foreign intelligence activities, in some cases delay executive response to foreign intelligence threats, and increase the chance of leaks regarding sensitive executive operations.
Every president since has cited this case, including Clinton when he was doing much worse then spying on our enemies.
Back to the article:
Other prominent Democratic senators including Dick Durbin of Illinois, Charles Schumer of New York and Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut made similar comments about reexamining the breadth and modernity of FISA in television interviews a few days after Rove urged Republicans to campaign on national security and the war on terror.
Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, who has also questioned the legality of the eavesdropping, also urged the administration to work with Congress on modernizing the 1978 FISA law to take into account technological changes in communications.
“I know of no member of Congress, frankly, who, if the administration came and said here’s why we need this capability, that they wouldn’t get it. And so let’s have the hearings,” McCain said on Fox News Sunday.
Just another reason why McCain will never make it past the Primaries. Unless he runs on the Democratic ticket.
House Intelligence Committee chairman Pete Hoekstra of Michigan, a strong defender of the president’s program, said on ABC’s “This Week” that “we’ll take a look at whether there needs to be a change in the law.”
But his Senate counterpart Intelligence Committee chairman Pat Roberts of Kansas said he worried that the public debate about what the NSA can or cannot do would harm its intelligence gathering.
“Al Qaeda are not stupid,” he said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “I really worry about losing that capability and seeing a diminished capacity for the president to act and detect a possible attack on the homeland, then do something about it.”
As the Osama tape has highlighted, they watch our media, they listen to the Democrats talking points, and they read the books of our lefties. What the left has done with this case has been a disgrace, from the moment a traitor gave this information to the media to this very day they have done nothing but dishonor every person who has served this country, every person who has died for this country, and every person who loves this country.
Yes, they are backtracking at a furious pace once again but not because they suddenly believe that the warrantless wiretaps are now necessary. They are running because they now know they will lose this one. Something else will come along. Probably another leaked story by a traitor, ahem “whistleblower”, will be put out there to see if it sticks, the consequences to our nations security be damned.
As the Osama tape has highlighted, they watch our media, they listen to the Democrats talking points, and they read the books of our lefties. What the left has done with this case has been a disgrace, from the moment a traitor gave this information to the media to this very day they have done nothing but dishonor every person who has served this country, every person who has died for this country, and every person who loves this country.

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:thumbup_tb: Lol, good one.
yes, i do have a facination(sic) – i’m visiting this site, right? but no, i’m not getting any help.
you may have laid out *your* argument, but it was entirely unconvincing. just like bush, just because you said it, doesn’t make it true. that’s what we have courts for, due process, etc.
or have those unconvenient portions of the constitution been similarly flushed after a thorough wipe through the fecund ass of the partisanship?
Where in the constitution does it say our Commander and Chief cannot wiretap international calls? Let me guess, you think the 4th amendment applies. It doesn’t and I have laid out my argument why in many posts. Read them before you comment with such an idiotic statement.
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