Opinion

PROTECTING TERRORISTS’ PRIVACY

Congressional Democrats have set their sights on limiting the government’s power to conduct warrantless eavesdropping of foreign terror suspects – despite the pleas of the nation’s intelligence chief that doing so would weaken America’s ability to track its enemies.

President Bush, on the other hand, wants Congress to expand the Protect America Act – an update of the 30-year-old Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that passed in August but expires after six months – and make it permanent.

The administration, not surprisingly, presents the more compelling case.

National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell told Congress this week that the critical need for renewing the act goes far beyond the War on Terror.

“China and Russia’s foreign-intelligence services are among the most aggressive in [targeting] sensitive and protected U.S. systems, facilities and development projects,” he testified, “and their efforts are approaching Cold War levels.”

Still, it is the need to keep a watchful eye on global terrorists that remains the highest priority.

Problem is, the law hasn’t kept pace with rapidly changing communications technology.

Consider: Even most Democrats likely would agree that there should be no restrictions on the CIA’s ability to monitor conversations that take place outside this country’s borders. And, in fact, FISA exempts such conversations from any requirement for a court-ordered warrant.

These days, however, even conversations between two foreign points might travel over a fiber-optic cable that passes within the United States. And a FISA Court judge earlier this year ruled that any conversation that travels within U.S. borders is a domestic call – meaning that no surveillance is allowed without a court’s OK.

The amount of paperwork and legal argument that this would entail would severly cripple the ability of intelligence agents to do their job. Which is one reason the president and McConnell want the act expanded.

But Democrats want to tighten the restrictions on U.S. intelligence collection – even though McConnell says that not one American citizen has been targeted without a warrant since he took office in February.

As President Bush rightly notes, “The threat from al Qaeda will not disappear in 135 days” – which is when the Protect America Act expires. Moreover, adds Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Wainstein, “Any time you put in limiting language, you’ve got to make sure it doesn’t have unintended limiting consequences.”

Democrats make much of their supposed interest in “correcting” what they consider the administration’s shortfalls in ensuring national security.

The best way to convince skeptics that their concern is genuine – and not motivated by partisan rancor – would be to give the intelligence community the tools it has asked for and permanently re- authorize the Protect America Act.