Helen Thomas Hearst Newspapers, August 9, 2007
WASHINGTON — President Bush has the Democrats’ number on Capitol Hill. All he has to do is play the fear card and invoke the war on terror and they will cave.
What’s more, the president has found out that he can break the law and the rubber stamp Democratic Congress will give him a pass every time.
The fear of being branded “soft on terrorism” was enough to make the Democrats capitulate once again to the Bush administration’s demands. Or was it simply a looming vacation and beckoning campaign travel that led them to desert the nation’s capital after giving the National Security Agency the power to expand its eavesdropping program without a warrant.
The Orwellian measure allows the federal government — without a court order or oversight — to intercept electronic communications between people in the U.S. and people outside the U.S.
The old rule required that a special court give its approval for that kind of surveillance. The new law bypasses the court and empowers the director of national intelligence and the attorney general to authorize the surveillance.