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<DIV class=timestamp>May 2, 2007</DIV>
<DIV class=kicker><NYT_KICKER>Editorial</NYT_KICKER></DIV>
<H1><NYT_HEADLINE type=" " version="1.0">Spying on Americans
</NYT_HEADLINE></H1><NYT_BYLINE type=" "
version="1.0"></NYT_BYLINE><NYT_TEXT></NYT_TEXT>
<DIV id=articleBody>
<P>For more than five years, President Bush authorized government spying on
phone calls and e-mail to and from the United States without warrants. He
rejected offers from Congress to update the electronic eavesdropping law, and
stonewalled every attempt to investigate his spying program.</P>
<P>Suddenly, Mr. Bush is in a hurry. He has submitted a bill that would enact
enormous, and enormously dangerous, changes to the 1978 law on eavesdropping. It
would undermine the fundamental constitutional principle — over which there can
be no negotiation or compromise — that the government must seek an individual
warrant before spying on an American or someone living here legally.</P>
<P>To heighten the false urgency, the Bush administration will present this
issue, as it has before, as a choice between catching terrorists before they act
or blinding the intelligence agencies. But the administration has never offered
evidence that the 1978 law, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, hampered
intelligence gathering after the 9/11 attacks. Mr. Bush simply said the law did
not apply to him.</P>
<P>The director of national intelligence, Michael McConnell, said yesterday that
the evidence of what is wrong with FISA was too secret to share with all
Americans. That’s an all-too-familiar dodge. Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat
of California, who is familiar with the president’s spying program, has said
that it could have been conducted legally. She even offered some sensible
changes for FISA, but the administration and the Republican majority in the last
Congress buried her bill.</P>
<P>Mr. Bush’s motivations for submitting this bill now seem obvious. The courts
have rejected his claim that 9/11 gave him virtually unchecked powers, and he
faces a Democratic majority in Congress that is willing to exercise its
oversight responsibilities. That, presumably, is why his bill grants immunity to
telecommunications companies that cooperated in five years of illegal
eavesdropping. It also strips the power to hear claims against the spying
program from all courts except the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court,
which meets in secret.</P>
<P>According to the administration, the bill contains “long overdue” FISA
modifications to account for changes in technology. The only example it offered
was that an e-mail sent from one foreign country to another that happened to go
through a computer in the United States might otherwise be missed. But Senator
Feinstein had already included this fix in the bill Mr. Bush rejected.</P>
<P>Moreover, FISA has been updated dozens of times in the last 29 years. In
2000, Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden, who ran the National Security Agency then, said
it “does not require amendment to accommodate new communications technologies.”
And since 9/11, FISA has had six major amendments.</P>
<P>The measure would not update FISA; it would gut it. It would allow the
government to collect vast amounts of data at will from American citizens’
e-mail and phone calls. The Center for National Security Studies said it might
even be read to permit video surveillance without a warrant. </P>
<P>This is a dishonest measure, dishonestly presented, and Congress should
reject it. Before making any new laws, Congress has to get to the truth about
Mr. Bush’s spying program. (When asked at a Senate hearing yesterday if Mr. Bush
still claims to have the power to ignore FISA when he thinks it is necessary,
Mr. McConnell refused to answer.)</P>
<P>With clear answers — rather than fearmongering and stonewalling — there can
finally be a real debate about amending FISA. It’s not clear whether that can
happen under this president. Mr. Bush long ago lost all credibility in the area
where this law lies: at the fulcrum of the balance between national security and
civil liberties. </P></DIV></DIV></BODY></HTML>