The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)…Out of Sight, Out of Mind

By Dennis Lormel

In February, The House of Representatives failed to follow the Senates lead and vote to pass FISA legislation. Instead, they chose to allow this valuable intelligence collection tool to expire. In so doing, they made the intelligence collection capability of U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies more difficult and time consuming. In this context, time is the enemy of the government and the ally of terrorists. However you assess this situation, it is an impediment to national security. Terrorists who benefit from the lapse in intelligence collection capabilities could well be planning to exploit this lapse through terrorist attacks on our homeland.

In February, when the House failed to act on the FISA legislation, I posted an article on the Counterterrorism Blog entitled “The Intelligence Bill Should Not Be Held Hostage by Politics.” It appears that House Leaders continue to hold this important legislation hostage. They seem to have adopted an out of sight, out of mind mentality. Unfortunately, terrorists do not adhere to this mindset.

Prior to, and following the inaction on the part of The House of Representatives, Director of National Security (DNI) Michael McConnell repeatedly stated that the intelligence community requires broad collection and monitoring capabilities, as provided in the Senate legislation. DNI McConnell also provided the assessment that not enacting FISA legislation weakened national security and placed the country at higher risk.

Certain Members of the House strongly criticized DNI McConnell and accused him of promoting the position of the White House on this issue. They chose to fail to recognize DNI McConnell as the nonpartisan intelligence leader and professional he is. It’s time to put politics aside and resolve this debate. The issue of immunity for the telecommunications companies that cooperated with the government and provided the government with information continues to be at the heart of this debate. The fact that this situation has lingered on is disgraceful. The American people deserve better than that.

Two questions come to mind for the Members of the House who chose to disregard DNI McConnell’s recommendations and accuse him of partisanship. First, why did they vote in favor of establishing a DNI if they intended to disregard his advice when it suited them? Second, should the next President be a member of their party, will these same Members still disregard DNI McConnell’s advice when he provides the new President with the same intelligence and recommendations?

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