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Friday, August 3, 2007
Strengthened FOIA gets green light
A behind-the-scenes agreement was reached Friday night that clears the way for swift passage of a bill strengthening the Freedom of Information Act for the first time in a decade.
The Open Government bill, introduced by Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and John Cornyn, R-Texas, was placed on what is known in congressional parlance as “the hotline.”
That means the bill will be added to other bills that are expected to pass without objection right before lawmakers leave town for the August recess.
The passage of the bill has been held up by Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., and the Bush administration since April, when it passed the Senate Judiciary Committee by voice vote. A companion bill cleared the House by a wide margin.
Leahy and Cornyn alleviated Kyl’s concerns just in time for the August recess.
The bill is a “good-government bill that Democrats and Republicans, alike, can and should work together to enact,” Leahy said. “Open government should not be a Democratic issue or a Republican issue. It is an American issue and an American value.”
Cornyn was equally pleased about the pending improvement to the beleaguered 41-year-old law — a top agenda item for him when he first came to the Senate.
“This bill will go a long way to fulfilling the promise of FOIA, and securing for the American people the access to their government that they deserve,” Cornyn said. “We are close to reaching an agreement today to finally pass this bill and I’m cautiously optimistic that we can do so.”
Leahy applauded the open government community and the public for urging the Senate to pass what the House did months ago.
“I especially want to thank concerned citizens who have not sat idly by while some have sought to delay and obstruct Senate consideration of this measure,” Leahy said. “Instead, knowing the importance of this measure to the American people’s right to know, they have demanded action and refused to take no for an answer.”
The bill would be the first major overhaul of the law in more than a decade.
It would:
— Enforce agency deadlines for responses to requests for information
— Impose consequences for agencies that fail to release information
— Clarify that private contractors are subject to FOIA
— Create an ombudsman to settle disputes over requests.
The Judiciary Committee approved the measure by voice vote in April. It has been stuck due to a “secret hold” placed on the bill by Kyl, a member of the Judiciary panel.
Kyl supported the administration’s concerns about the bill — that it would be too costly and time consuming to administer.
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Surveillance of Americans Under Wraps
The American Civil Liberties Union is urging Congress to vote “no” on any proposal offered today to allow an expansion of electronic surveillance without court oversight.
Michelle Richardson, a lobbyist with the civil liberties group, said lawmakers are largely in the dark about what both the Republican and Democratic proposals to overhaul the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
“No one knows what is in either proposal,” Richardson said. “They are asking members to vote on something they haven’t seen or discussed. I thought the Democrats were supposed to be about open government, and here they are trying to ram an anti-terrorism bill that no one has really seen in the dark of night.”
The ACLU wants Congress to slow down.
“Wiretapping on American soil should not be a last-minute proposal approved in crisis mode because lawmakers are scared to death by the administration’s assertion that a terror threat is looming,” Richardson said.
But a top aide to Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell urges the ACLU to slow down and read the bill.
“Nobody is hiding anything here,” the Republican aide said. “The bill we filed can easily be found on Thomas.gov at here You can’t get much more transparent than that.”
The Republican measure “does not allow them to willy nilly listen to people in the United States,” the Republican aide said. “Unless the suspect is making some threat or order (to commit a terrorist act), they have to drop the call. If they person is in the United States, they have to get a warrant to go after them.”
The few details that have leaked out about the Republican proposal: warrantless surveillance would be overseen by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and John McConnell, the director of national intelligence.
The few details that have leaked out about the Democratic proposal: expanded surveillance of terrorists to be checked annually by the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
The court has approved nearly every surveillance request made by law enforcement agencies, prompting some to question why the administration needs this expanded new power.
Here’s what McConnell has to say about why new powers are needed:
“We must urgently close the gap in our current ability to effectively collect foreign intelligence,” McConnell said Thursday night in a statement. The current Foreign Intelligence law was approved in 1978 and is no longer effective, he said.
“The intelligence community should not be required to obtain court orders to effectively collect foreign intelligence from foreign targets located overseas,” McConnell said.
“Second, those who assist the Government in protecting us from harm must be protected from liability,” said McConnell, referring to the companies that have helped the administration with its secret program until the program was disclosed in December 2005.
The intelligence community should not be restricted to effective collection of only certain categories of foreign intelligence when the targets are located overseas, McConnell said.
“The bill must not require court approval before urgently needed intelligence collection can begin against a foreign target located overseas,” McConnell said. “The delays of a court process that requires judicial determinations in advance to gather vital intelligence from foreign targets overseas can in some cases prevent the rapid gathering of intelligence necessary to provide warning of threats to the country. This process would also require in practice that we continue to divert scarce intelligence experts to compiling these court submissions. Similarly, critical intelligence gathering on foreign targets should not be halted while court review is pending.”
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Diplomacy 101, According to Wes Clark
Wes Clark knows a little something about warfare. He was a four-star general in the Army and retired as the supreme allied commander of NATO. But he also knows a little bit about diplomacy.
He gave a mini-lecture on diplomacy to the YearlyKos bloggers convention in Chicago Friday morning. And he did it in a way the netroots activists could understand quickly — using some of the liberal blogosphere’s favorite villians to illustrate his points.
“Level One” of diplomacy, he described as the approach taken by Fox News commentator Bill O’Reilly: “You no-good, stinkin’ … you know … if you ever do this, I’ll blow your head off!”
“Level Two,” he attributed to the “horse trading” techniques of James Baker, who served as secretary of state under President Bush’s father, George H.W. Bush. And lapsing into the honey-smooth Texas accent of Baker, Clark said: “You know, I’m here representing the United States. I’m wondering what it’ll take to get you boys to see things my way.”
“Level Three,” he said, is the one the current Bush administration has never tried: “It’s where borders should be respected. People should have rights. Nations should choose their own form of government. No nation should use force to threaten another nation. Working through statements, agreements and principles into community of interests into organizations that can deal with those interests.”
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Clinton Disses Bloggers? Or Is It Just Bad Communication?
Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York appeared to be making some progress in winning over the netroots in her bid for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination — until Thursday night.
Just as the first day of the YearlyKos convention of bloggers and Internet activists came to a close Thursday night, it was announced that Clinton would not attend a meeting with the activists on Saturday.
The announcement produced a round of boos and hisses from the 1,500 “netroots” who had just heard a speech from Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, the first of several keynote addresses at the convention.
Clinton will still attend the presidential candidates’ forum at the YearlyKos convention on Saturday. But she will be the only one of the candidates who will skip a separate “breakout” meeting with the netroots following the forum. She will send adviser Ann Lewis in her place.
YearlyKos Executive Director Gina Cooper said the Clinton campaign did not snub the “breakout” session. She said Clinton had never committed to it, and that a communications mixup had led to her being listed in the convention program as attending.
Earlier in the day, blogger superstar Markos Moulitsas had praised Clinton’s attempt to reach out to the netroots, who have not been happy with some of her positions, especially her original vote in support of the war in Iraq.
Moulitsas said he was especially impressed by Clinton’s willingness to “listen” to the netroots “when making her decisions.”
The “breakout” session Clinton has decided to skip was intended to be a “listening” session for the candidates.
Moulitsas did not react immediately to Clinton’s decision to skip the session.
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