Andy McCarthy praises the FISA compromise that Congress has worked out:
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.
McCarthy notes the compromise isn’t perfect: It requires a standard of “probable cause,” which “has no place in national-security surveillance against foreign threats.” Also, the compromise usurps executive authority by purporting “to make congressional statutes – i.e., the laws that impose judicial oversight – the ‘exclusive means’ by which electronic surveillance may be conducted.” But if Russ Feingold says the bill “is not a compromise; it is a capitulation,” that’s good enough for government work. Right? UPDATE: In the House, the bill passes 293 to 129.
