Constitution Given 6 Month Suspension

by Joel Thompson

The Democratic controlled Senate bent to Republican and White House pressure Friday night passing a bill that gives the National Security Agency the power to spy on any American's overseas communications without a warrant. President Bush threatened to suspend the Senate's August recess unless Bill 1927 passed, which it did by a 60-28 vote.

At least they don't have to cancel their barbeque plans.

Officially, the bill amends the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 for the purposes of enhancing the collection of overseas data in phone calls and emails. Where it crosses the line of realistic privacy, though, is that any communication coming to or from an overseas source is now subject to NSA eavesdropping.

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) summed up the common sense concerns of many Americans with his Senate floor remarks prior to the vote:

"This bill would go way too far. It would permit the government with no court oversight whatsoever to intercept communications of calls to and from the United States as long as it is directed at a person - any person, not a suspected terrorist, any person - reasonably believed to be outside the United States. That means giving free reign to the government to wiretap anyone including U.S. citizens who live overseas, service members such as those in Iraq, journalists reporting from overseas or even members of Congress who are overseas and call home to the U.S. and this is without any court oversight whatever."

Despite Feingold's and others' objections, 16 Democrats signed onto the passage of the bill, including high profile membersEvan Bayh (D-IN) and Jim Webb (D-VA) with the caveat that Congress will revisit the issue in 6 months.

Plenty of Americans with no terrorist leanings whatsoever will be spied on in that time frame.

The greater issue to me is that Congress is once again ceding important authority to the executive branch, and that act consolidates power for the president and his cabinet. The Director of National Intelligence now has a 6-month rubber stamp to eavesdrop on whoever he wants with a complete and utter absence of Congressional oversight.

Feingold again hit the nail on the head: "At times of war we don't give up our responsibility in the U.S. Senate to review and make laws. The notion that we simply defer this to the Director of National Intelligence and whatever he says is an abdication of our duties especially in time of war."

The Constitution has taken many hits since September 11, 2001, but the clear delineation of power between the three branches of government is so sacred to our founding principles, that without it we are a completely different nation.

But once again, the Constitution found far too few defenders in Congress. Instead, Congress heads to vacation, and the NSA gets to run wild. Let's just hope that no Senators need to make any sensitive overseas phone calls. You never know who's listening in.