Jim Webb's decision to vote for a temporary six-month extension of the FISA program was the right decision to make at this moment and I support him one-hundred percent. Here is Webb's statement about his reasons for voting as he did:
Yesterday I supported two measures to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. These measures were considered against the backdrop of heightened concerns from our nation's intelligence community abut the threat of international terrorism. The ramifications of the two amendments before us last night were not political. Instead they related to the urgent demands of national security. I chose to heed those warnings. We now have six months to work in earnest to bring full accountability to the process.
This distinction and the threats to national security were stated clearly by Admiral McConnell as well as four of the eight Democratic members of the Senate Intelligence Committee. These members, Senators Feinstein, Mikulski, Bayh, and Bill Nelson, have extensive experience on intelligence matters and are respected champions of civil rights and liberties. They chose to give significant weight and deference to the intelligence community on FISA reform, and so did I.
There is near uniform, bipartisan agreement on the need to reform FISA to reflect modern telecommunications and information technology. We must do so in a way that safeguards basic civil and constitutional rights. But we must also remember that the terrorist threat to the nation is extremely serious. I remain fully committed to bringing accountability to this process, and to protecting the privacy rights of all Americans.
Predictably Webb has come under fire from that part of the Democratic Party that thinks everything should be done perfectly, on the first try, and without expending any real effort.
Here are the realities:
- Despite the amount of false propaganda spread by the Republican Party, our nation does in fact have dangerous enemies. The terrorist threat is very real, though it is also very different from the way the Republicans, and in particular the administration of George W. Bush, have described it.
- FISA has needed an overhaul for many years now. Be thankful that it will be Democrats that will rewrite this bill instead of the Republicans. If Republicans rewrote this bill most Americans would end up being implanted with microchips to monitor their private thoughts.
- FISA is broken and the George W. Bush broke it. Because Bush and his cronies pushed the exisiting law too far, they ended up losing a court case and severely damaged our ability to obtain intelligence. This was the result of sloppiness and a total disregard for the rule of law on the part of the Republicans.
- It will take time to rewrite FISA, and in the meantime we needed some kind of temporary legislation to buy time for Congress to work on a new version of FISA. The bills Jim Webb voted for provide for this temporary bridge.
- We may need another temporary extension of FISA, lasting until the end of the Bush administration. When this law is rewritten it needs to be rewritten by Democratic-dominated Congress and signed off on by a Democratic President. Any rewrite of this law under the current administration would bear the unholy fingerprints of Bush, Cheney and Gonzales--and in consequence would be deeply flawed from its outset.
Clearly we cannot stop investigating and vigorously pursuing terrorists until the Bush administration slithers into retirement. My preference would be to renew this legislation every few months, keeping Bush on a short leash and running out the clock.
With some hard work and some luck, a new Democratic administration will take office in 2009 and will be able to work with a Democratic Congress that includes a solid majority in the House and no less than sixty Democratic Senators (not including Lieberman). Once these factors are in place, FISA can be rewritten "in a way that safeguards basic civil and constitutional rights."
The only way we fail is if we allow Bush and his allies in the mainstream media to turn this six-month temporary patch into some kind of grand victory that can be used to divide the Democratic Party.
For more bloggers who support Webb's decision to support a temporary extension you can visit Howling Latina and Donkey with a Trunk.
Cross-posted from The Richmond Democrat.