

President Bush's final State of the Union speech touched on but did not dwell on Congress' ongoing debate over how much unilateral spying power to hand over to the nation's spooks and whether to grant the nation's telecoms retroactive immunity for helping the government's warrantless spying on Americans.

On the homefront, we will continue to take every lawful and effective measure to protect our country. This is our most solemn duty. We are grateful that there has not been another attack on our soil since September 11. This is not for a lack of desire or effort on the part of the enemy. In the past six years, we have stopped numerous attacks, including a plot to fly a plane into the tallest building in Los Angeles and another to blow up passenger jets bound for America over the Atlantic. Dedicated men and women in our government toil day and night to stop the terrorists from carrying out their plans. These good citizens are saving American lives, and everyone in this chamber owes them our thanks. And we owe them something more: We owe them the tools they need to keep our people safe. One of the most important tools we can give them is the ability to monitor terrorist communications. To protect America, we need to know who the terrorists are talking to, what they are saying, and what they are planning. Last year, the Congress passed legislation to help us do that. Unfortunately, the Congress set the legislation to expire on February 1. This means that if you do not act by Friday, our ability to track terrorist threats would be weakened and our citizens will be in greater danger. The Congress must ensure the flow of vital intelligence is not disrupted. The Congress must pass liability protection for companies believed to have assisted in the efforts to defend America. We have had ample time for debate. The time to act is now.

Following on the lies and mistruths issued from the mouths of Republican senators over the past week and months, Bush's rhetoric seems tame and almost hardly worth mentioning.

THREAT LEVEL is convinced that Bush will sign some temporary extension to the current wiretapping bill, but is less sure that immunity will ever be passed by this Congress.

Democrats and Republicans alike have bought into the "intelligence gap" rhetoric, however, and will likely give the nation's spooks the power to live in our domestic communication networks with hardly any oversight.

That's far more dangerous than any immunity clause, because once the spooks are in the tubes, they will continue to find reasons – cyber-crime or drug dealing or pedophiles – to stay in there.

But there remains hope that the nation's courts will find a way to question the sweeping claims of power made by the executive branch to avoid responsibility for secretly turning the nation's spy apparatus loose on Americans without following the law.

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