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Bond: Congress Must Act Now to Update Early Warning System
Efforts to Stall Terrorist Surveillance Bill Irresponsible and Dangerous
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January 22, 2008
WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Senator Kit Bond, Vice Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, today stressed that Congress must act now to update the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), our nation's critical terrorist early warning system. Bond called further delays to passing the FISA Amendments Act – which is needed to keep our intelligence operators in the business of terrorist surveillance – irresponsible and dangerous.
"Congress has had six months to act. To stall legislation needed to help our intelligence community prevent attacks and protect American lives is not only irresponsible, it's also dangerous."
Last spring, a court ruled that because of the change in technology, the old terrorist surveillance laws severely limited collection of critical communications of foreign terrorists. Bond led the effort to pass the Protect America Act to keep our intelligence community in the business of tracking terrorists on a short-term basis before Congress passed a more permanent legislative fix. Bond included a six month sunset to the bill after Democrats assured him that there would be plenty of time to study further the legislation and act on a longer-term fix. Now the stop-gap legislation expires on February 1st, giving Congress only 8 days to act. Bond noted that if there is no action before this deadline, Congress could leave our country unprotected, possibly creating a serious intelligence gap that allows terrorists to use technology to stay one step ahead of us.
“Failure to act could leave our country deaf and dumb, handcuffing our intelligence operators who are fighting to protect American families in the war against Islamic extremism,” said Bond.
Bond disagrees with efforts to delay long-term protection to our nation with a short-term extension. He pointed out that Congress has had more than enough time to act in passing updated terrorist surveillance legislation. In October, the Senate Intelligence Committee passed a bipartisan bill – with a vote of 13-2. Democratic Majority Leader Reid chose not to bring this legislation to the floor until the last days of session in December. After liberal Democrats filibustered the bill, Reid was forced to pull the legislation from the floor.
Stalling long-term legislation is damaging to our nation’s ability to continue to track terrorists, Bond stressed. Without this long-term fix our intelligence community will lack any certainty about their ability to use legally the tools they need to protect us. Bond also emphasized that without long-term legislation telecommunications providers who may have assisted the government in tracking terrorists would not be protected from ongoing frivolous lawsuits. Without this protection our intelligence sources and methods could be compromised, resulting in the loss of intelligence that could be vital to our intelligence operators and our troops on the battlefield.
The only responsible action for Congress to take is to pass the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee bill before the February 1st deadline, stated Bond. This bill gives intelligence operators and law enforcement the tools needed to conduct surveillance of foreign terrorists in foreign countries planning to conduct attacks inside the United States or against our allies.
Bond warned against false claims about threats to Americans’ privacy interests that some liberal Democrats will make over the next week as Congress debates the bill. Bond stressed that the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee bill goes much further in protecting American civil liberties than the old law. In fact, the bipartisan bill passed by the Senate Intelligence Committee includes all of the protections for Americans in the old law and adds additional protections. Any claims to the contrary are attempts by some to mislead and pander to the left-wing base.
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