RESTORE insanity

Thursday’s post, “Unspinning FISA lies,” was written around 11 p.m. Wednesday, then posted shortly after midnight. At 8:59 p.m. ET, the Associated Press reported that a Republican gambit had caused Democratic leaders in the House to pull the RESTORE Act of 2007 legislation, which would have come to the House floor Thursday.

The RESTORE Act of 2007 is best explained by its name: "Responsible Electronic Surveillance That is Overseen, Reviewed and Effective Act of 2007."

The bill would bring the Bush administration’s secretive, warrantless wiretapping of American citizens’ phone and email conversations back into the auspices of the FISA Court.

While the ACLU protests the legislation – calling for blanket rather than individual warrants - doesn’t go far enough, the RESTORE Act is a step toward restoring Constitutional protections to domestic electronic surveillance.

The Associated Press report explains the Republican gambit:

“The House's Democratic leaders pulled the bill after discovering that Republicans planned to offer a motion that politically vulnerable Democrats would have a hard time voting against.

“The amendment would have said that nothing in the bill could limit surveillance of Osama bin Laden and terrorist organizations. While Democrats say their bill already provides that authority, voting against the amendment could make it seem as though a member of Congress were against spying on al-Qaida.

“Republicans sought to play down the amendment's role in causing the bill to be pulled. Michigan Rep. Pete Hoekstra, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said the bill was losing moderate Democratic votes because it was fundamentally flawed.

“Passage of the Republican amendment would have sent the bill immediately back to committee, effectively killing it. Key Democrats believed they were short of the votes needed to defeat the move.”

In other words, the Republican amendment would have made a vote against it appear to be a vote for bin Laden. Devious, those Republicans. Tp bad they’re not as skilled at interpreting the Constitution.

Read the complete Associated Press article, which clarifies a rather complex issue: LINK

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The bill, which Bush threatens to veto, could come up for a vote as early as next week. The following post is germane in that it attempts to debunk spin and lies about the issue, and points out that Bush was using secret domestic eavesdropping as early as six months before 9/11. Read on.