Speaker Pelosi Waltzed out of Town

By Rense Johnson, Chairman, Citizens for Term Limits

Despite pleas from President George Bush, Speaker Nancy Pelosi waltzed the House of Representatives away from their duty to make permanent the improvements to the U..S. Governmental Eavesdropping Law which expired over the past weekend after Nancy and company took off for a twelve-day recess.

In our bicameral Congress, each chamber has a roll to play. But Ms. Pelosi has stomped her foot like a third grader on the school yard and spun away with pigtails flying, as she disappears after treating the House of Representatives as if it were her own third grade playground, taking the whole House with her and ignoring her duty to put the nation’s security ahead of her own personal pleasures — but not before throwing an insult President Bush’s way for wanting to keep the nation secure. This juvenile action is perilously close to violation of her oath of office: “to defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”

At issue is a simple question: Should American telecommunication companies, who assisted the government in eavesdropping conducted on overseas terrorists be protected by that same government (ours) against predatory lawsuits after the fact?

New legislation crafted by Democrat Senator Jay Rockefeller, Chairman of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee, passed the Senate earlier by a vote of 68-29. The language included the needed retroactive immunity for telecommunication companies which helped the government eavesdrop on terrorists after nine-eleven. Even more recently, Rockefeller said on the Senate floor that if we don’t include such protection, the telecommunication companies will lose interest in cooperation.

And why should they cooperate in our litigious society, where there is a predatory plaintiff’s lawyer behind every tree, waiting to pounce? (We do not include all legitimate, honest courtroom attorneys here, only the bottom feeders.)

This shapes up as an intramural fight among Democrats: Grown-ups versus children. House leaders claim they are looking for a compromise, but Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell believes what they really want is a way to reward the lawyers who support them: “Democrats would rather see companies in court than terrorists in jail.”

The other McConnell, Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell, explains that the only eavesdropping at issue has to do with our enemies outside the country. Eavesdropping on those in the United States still requires a warrant.

House Majority Leader Stenny Hoyer says that nothing radical will happen after expiration of the existing law, and Congressman Sylvester Reyes, Chairman of the House select Intelligence Committee agrees, saying that orders are in effect until August of this year regarding every terrorist group.

Of course both miss the point that it is the new undiscovered terrorist groups we don’t yet know about that Hoyer and Reyes are gambling won’t strike us at home — or lay plans we’ll never know about — while they are skiing or golfing or whatever else they will be doing for the remainder of their devil-may-care vacation.

The odds are that they may be right. But it’s an awful gamble to take where huge numbers of American lives can be at risk.

The ability to listen in to the conversations of terrorists who first showed themselves on nine-eleven of 2001 is among the most important tools used by those in government whose job it is to protect us. The prepubescent Pelosis, Hoyers and Reyes of this world are holding responsible government jobs at taxpayers’ expense before they have grown up to accept responsibilities that go with those jobs.

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