Rove resigns (on a bit of a high note, I hate to admit)
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Karl Rove will be resigning at the end of August. I don't think history will judge him very kindly, but he is leaving on the heels of a major victory: the surprising passage of a bill expanding the executive branch's wiretapping powers just before the Congressional recess. As Rove points out in the (predictably friendly, but critical enough that it falls short of pandering) WSJ column about his resignation, wiretapping will continue to be a political hot potato for the Democrats.
Everyone's been trying to figure out why the Democrats compromised and passed the bill, and the New York Times article "Reported Drop in Surveillance Spurred a Law" provides the best explanation I have seen. First, the intelligence agencies came to Congress during mid-July warning that they were only intercepting about 25% of the foreign-based calls they had been getting a few months earlier. The primary reason, according to the intelligence officials, was a classified ruling by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in early 2007. The Times article explains:
A ruling a month or two later — the judge who made it and its exact timing are not clear — restricted the government’s ability to intercept foreign-to-foreign communications passing through telecommunication "switches" on American soil.
The security agency was newly required to seek warrants to monitor at least some of those phone calls and e-mail messages. As a result, the ability to intercept foreign-based communications "kept getting ratcheted down," said a senior intelligence official who insisted on anonymity because the account involved classified material. "We were to a point where we were not effectively operating."
Mr. McConnell, lead negotiator for the administration in lobbying for the bill, said in an interview that the court’s restrictions had made his job much more difficult.
"It was crazy, because I’m sitting here signing out warrants on known Al Qaeda operatives that are killing Americans, doing foreign communications,” he said. "And the only reason I’m signing that warrant is because it touches the U.S. communications infrastructure. That’s what we fixed." [New York Times]
As they got more information about these problems, Democrats began to work on a narrower compromise bill, which would have allowed eavesdropping on communications from one foreign party to another which are routed through American telecommunications networks, but would have added court oversight. As the recess approached, leaders from the two parties made headway on a compromise, but then talks broke down on August 2. So the Republicans put their bill up for a vote, and got enough Democratic support in both houses to pass it.
Basically, the Democrats were caught between a rock and a hard place on this one, and forty-one Democratic House Reps and sixteen Democratic Senators joined the Republicans to pass the "Protect America Act" (by the way, did Rove help name this one?).
If the bill was narrowly tailored to address the situation involving calls from one foreign party to another through American telecoms, I would say it's probably a good idea. But what scares me is how this will affect eavesdropping on American citizens (see the previous post, "The NSA's other domestic surveillance program," for more on the stuff no one's talking about). I just don't trust the Bush administration to limit its surveillance to US citizens who are, as Bush likes to put it, "talking to terrorists" - and that has a lot to do with the legacy of Mr. Rove.
"The Mark of Rove" [Wall Street Journal]
"Reported Drop in Surveillance Spurred a Law" [New York Times]
Everyone's been trying to figure out why the Democrats compromised and passed the bill, and the New York Times article "Reported Drop in Surveillance Spurred a Law" provides the best explanation I have seen. First, the intelligence agencies came to Congress during mid-July warning that they were only intercepting about 25% of the foreign-based calls they had been getting a few months earlier. The primary reason, according to the intelligence officials, was a classified ruling by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in early 2007. The Times article explains:
A ruling a month or two later — the judge who made it and its exact timing are not clear — restricted the government’s ability to intercept foreign-to-foreign communications passing through telecommunication "switches" on American soil.
The security agency was newly required to seek warrants to monitor at least some of those phone calls and e-mail messages. As a result, the ability to intercept foreign-based communications "kept getting ratcheted down," said a senior intelligence official who insisted on anonymity because the account involved classified material. "We were to a point where we were not effectively operating."
Mr. McConnell, lead negotiator for the administration in lobbying for the bill, said in an interview that the court’s restrictions had made his job much more difficult.
"It was crazy, because I’m sitting here signing out warrants on known Al Qaeda operatives that are killing Americans, doing foreign communications,” he said. "And the only reason I’m signing that warrant is because it touches the U.S. communications infrastructure. That’s what we fixed." [New York Times]
As they got more information about these problems, Democrats began to work on a narrower compromise bill, which would have allowed eavesdropping on communications from one foreign party to another which are routed through American telecommunications networks, but would have added court oversight. As the recess approached, leaders from the two parties made headway on a compromise, but then talks broke down on August 2. So the Republicans put their bill up for a vote, and got enough Democratic support in both houses to pass it.
Basically, the Democrats were caught between a rock and a hard place on this one, and forty-one Democratic House Reps and sixteen Democratic Senators joined the Republicans to pass the "Protect America Act" (by the way, did Rove help name this one?).
If the bill was narrowly tailored to address the situation involving calls from one foreign party to another through American telecoms, I would say it's probably a good idea. But what scares me is how this will affect eavesdropping on American citizens (see the previous post, "The NSA's other domestic surveillance program," for more on the stuff no one's talking about). I just don't trust the Bush administration to limit its surveillance to US citizens who are, as Bush likes to put it, "talking to terrorists" - and that has a lot to do with the legacy of Mr. Rove.
"The Mark of Rove" [Wall Street Journal]
"Reported Drop in Surveillance Spurred a Law" [New York Times]
posted at 5:40:00 AM | permalink
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