Scaring lawmakers to sell FISA

A couple of years ago, former Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge acknowledged that the Bush administration periodically put the USA on high alert for terrorist attacks based on flimsy evidence. “There were times when some people were really aggressive about raising it, and we said, ‘For that?'” Ridge told reporters.

The answer, of course, was to scare the bejeezus out of people, in the hopes that Bush’s approval ratings would go up, the administration could get more power, or both.

Sometimes, though, the scare tactics are directed at lawmakers themselves. Roll Call reported in early August, “Capitol Police officials have stepped up the department’s security presence on Capitol Hill in response to intelligence indicating the increased possibility of an al-Qaida terrorist attack on Congress sometime between now and Sept. 11.” Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) turned up the heat, adding “Congress needed to pass changes to terrorist surveillance laws before leaving for the August recess and warned that otherwise ‘the disaster could be on our doorstep.'”

And therein lied the point: Congress was debating whether (and how) to revise FISA when lawmakers were told al Qaeda might attack Capitol Hill directly. The message to members had all the subtlety of a sledgehammer — give the administration more sweeping powers, immediately, or your lives are on the line.

Newsweek, following up on comments Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) made to the Center for American Progress Action Fund, reports that the threats may have been a scam.

A leading House Democrat has charged that congressional Republicans promoted “bogus” intelligence about a reputed terror threat on Capitol Hill last summer, inflaming debate over the Bush administration’s proposal to dramatically expand the U.S. government’s electronic surveillance powers. Rep. Jane Harman, who chairs a key homeland-security subcommittee, has provided new details this week about an alarming intel report in August that warned of a possible Al Qaeda attack on the Capitol. The report, which was quickly discredited, was circulated on Capitol Hill at a critical moment: just as the administration was mounting a major push for a new surveillance law that would permit the U.S. intelligence community to intercept suspected terrorist communications without seeking approval from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

To be sure, I’ve argued that Dems handled the debate poorly, and rushed to give Bush too much of what he wanted, without checks and balances. But this at least points to a mitigating factor.



In the days before the vote on the surveillance bill in early August, the U.S. Capitol Police suddenly stepped up security procedures, and one top Republican senator, Trent Lott, seemed to allude to the report when he claimed that “disaster could be on our doorstep” if the Congress didn’t immediately act. Inside the Congress, “there was a buzz about this,” Harman told NEWSWEEK. “There was an orchestrated campaign to basically gut FISA [the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act], and this piece of uncorroborated intelligence was used as part of it.” In fact, the intel report that provoked the concern was never publicly cited by the Bush administration in the run up to the surveillance bill — and was clearly labeled as unreliable when it was first passed to the U.S. Capitol police over the summer. The report lacked any specifics and was based on a foreign intelligence source U.S. officials did not view to be credible. (A written summary of the report, which made clear its limits, was also provided to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees.) But the alleged misuse of the information by some members of Congress illustrates the perils of one of the major changes instituted after the September 11 attacks: a commitment by U.S. intelligence officials to share with state and local law-enforcement agencies all reports about prospective terror threats in their communities no matter how vague and unreliable. “This stuff falls under the category of, ‘somebody, somewhere, some day is going to do something,’ said a congressional aide who works on intelligence issues but who asked not to be identified talking about sensitive information. In the past, many law-enforcement and intelligence professionals viewed it as irresponsible and unduly alarmist to pass along such uncorroborated reports. But now they are routinely shared — lest federal officials are later accused of “holding back” information that might have saved lives.

And if that dubious intelligence just happens to push lawmakers into giving Bush expanded and unprecedented powers, then the administration gets a two-fer.

Maybe the outcome of the vote would have been exactly the same; it’s hard to know for sure. But consider this: does anyone think the administration and congressional Republicans are above pushing bogus intelligence to get the legislation they want?