Posted by Mark Silva at 9:09 am CDT
President Bush will head to the Hill tomorrow – Capitol Hill – for a meeting with Republican congressional leaders intent on advancing a “national security” agenda this month.
While the biggest issue on the congressional plate, immigration reform, appears intractably stalled, Republican leaders hope to advance other measures that could help their candidates in November’s midterm elections convey the campaign message that the GOP is the party that will deliver on national security. Much of the president’s legislative agenda at the moment involves seeking legal authority for administration initiatives that either the Supreme Court or critics have blocked or challenged.
Among the president’s most pressing goals on the Hill: Winning legislation authorizing military tribunals for the trials of accused terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba — including the 14 newest arrivals there, operatives allegedly responsible for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and other bombings targeting Americans abroad.
The Supreme Court ruled in June that the administration could not try detainees with military tribunals without congressional approval.
“We are in intense, ongoing discussions,” White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said today of the president’s negotiations with Congress.
Vice President Dick Cheney and White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten already have visited Capitol Hill this week, as part of those negotiations.
The president also is calling on Congress for legislation authorizing the National Security Agency’s surveillance of people inside the United States suspected of communicating with terrorists outside the country.
Critics have complained that the administration is violating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires warrants from a special FISA court before the government can eavesdrop on domestic communications. The White House maintains that Bush is exercising his wartime powers with the NSA surveillance as well as authority that the Congress granted him after 9/11 with a joint resolution authorizing the use of force against perpetrators of the attacks.
The NSA surveillance, the White House maintains, is a matter of saving lives – averting another terrorist attack in the U.S. Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter (R., Pa.) and other leaders are attempting to hammer out legislation that defines the president’s wiretap authority.
“We are working with Sen. Specter on legislation that would further codify the president’s authority to save American lives,” Perino said. “We have committed early on, back in the Spring, that we would work with the Congress… on legislation that would further codify his authority.’
Yet some are complaining that the legislation which Specter’s conmittee is marking up today hands far too much authority to the NSA — subverting the initial intent of the 1978 FISA legislation which was intended to control government wiretapping that had run amok.
“Now, with scant information to support such a momentous change, we are considering a proposal that would turn back the clock and reject the entire framework that has governed the monitoring of communications of Americans for the last thirty years,” Sen. Edward Kennedy (D., Mass.) said today. “With unnecessary haste and inadequate deliberation, we are heading down a path that could lead to many unintended consequences….
“It’s true that we are at war and the terrorist threat is serious -I agree that we face a different threat today,” Kennedy said. “But to provide the president with the means necessary to fight terrorism, we amended FISA in the 2001 Patriot Act to give the president even more ability to track terrorists, without undermining the liberties of the American people. We can improve our laws and our national security without handing the president a blank check.”
