Bush is attempting to decriminalise his criminality.

I have been arguing on here that, as Bush already has updated FISA through the Patriot Act, that his recent calls to update FISA again are not about any need to provide the government with tools to tackle terrorism - after all, according to his own words, he now has such power as long as he gains court approval - but rather, as he has been refusing to ask the courts for approval, what he now seeks is to decriminalise his own criminality by removing the need for court approval from the procedure.

After all, Gonzales has repeatedly stated that there is no need to update FISA:

And as for the administration's recently unveiled claims that FISA must be amended and liberalized ASAP otherwise we will be unsafe from the Terrorists, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee have been asking the White House for almost two years what revisions to FISA are needed, and it was the White House that continuously insisted that no such changes were needed. From Gonzales' letter:


The only reason FISA has not been amended since December, 2005 -- when it was revealed that the President was violating it -- is because the White House has blocked all legislation designed to revise it

So, if the White House have constantly been claiming that FISA does not need amending, why would they possibly be suggesting that it is so urgent that it now be amended?

And the answer at last:

The national intelligence director, in a letter Wednesday to the House intelligence committee, stressed the need to be able to collect intelligence about foreign terrorists overseas. Mike McConnell said intelligence agencies should be able to do that without requirements imposed by an "out of date" law.

"Simply put, in a significant number of cases, we are in the unfortunate position of having to obtain court orders to effectively collect foreign intelligence about foreign targets located overseas," he wrote the committee chairman, Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas.

So Bush is trying to decriminalise his criminality. In the words of Caroline Fredrickson, director of the Washington legislative office of the American Civil Liberties Union:

"The administration claims the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act must be 'modernized.' Actually, it needs to be followed," she said. "The reality is, their proposal would gut FISA."

The ACLU said the legislation backed by the administration would give immunity from criminal prosecution and civil liability for the telecommunication companies that participate in the NSA program. The ACLU urged lawmakers to find out the full extent of current intelligence gathering under FISA before making changes.

"The only thing more outrageous than the administration's call for even more unfettered power is a Congress that would consider giving it to them," Frederickson said.

So Bush is actually planning on gutting FISA of it's need for court approval whilst lying - why am I remotely bloody surprised? - about needing to update it to meet the need to tackle modern terrorist's methods.

Once again, Bush plays the card of attempting to save the nation from the scourge of terrorism, when in actual fact he is actually trying to make the illegal acts he has participated in legal.

Tags: Bush, Gonzales, FISA, criminality, FISA amendments