Democrats Scrambling to Expand Eavesdropping

Democrats Scrambling to Expand Eavesdropping

Well, well…the Democrats start changing tunes as election time draws closer….who woulda thunk it?

Under pressure from President Bush, Democratic leaders in Congress are scrambling to pass legislation this week to expand the government’s electronic wiretapping powers.

Democratic leaders have expressed a new willingness to work with the White House to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to make it easier for the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on some purely foreign telephone calls and e-mail. Such a step now requires court approval.

It would be the first change in the law since the Bush administration’s program of wiretapping without warrants became public in December 2005.

In the past few days, Mr. Bush and Mike McConnell, director of national intelligence, have publicly called on Congress to make the change before its August recess, which could begin this weekend. Democrats appear to be worried that if they block such legislation, the White House will depict them as being weak on terrorism.

“We hope our Republican counterparts will work together with us to fix the problem, rather than try again to gain partisan political advantage at the expense of our national security,” Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, said in a statement Monday night.

Of course this will not make the Democrats’ puppet masters at the ACLU happy.

Some civil liberties groups oppose the proposed changes, expressing concern that there might be far-reaching consequences.

“Congress needs to take its time before it implements another piece of antiterrorism legislation it will regret, like the Patriot Act,” said Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union. “The Bush administration clearly has abused the FISA powers it already has and clearly wants to go back to the good old days of warrantless wiretapping and domestic spying. Congress must stop this bill in its tracks.”