1 post tagged “critical program”

Senator Chuck Grassley accuses House Democrats of being reluctant to allow the government to track foreign terror suspects, demonstrating to him that they don't seem to want to stop those threats.

Before leaving for its Easter recess, the House approved its version of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, also known as FISA. President Bush rejects Democrats' new version of the bill because it does not provide legal protections for telecommunications companies that have helped the administration conduct surveillance on foreign terror suspects. The president backs a bipartisan Senate-approved version of FISA.
 
Senator Grassley (R-Iowa) says FISA was critical in helping the government thwart terror plots to blow up the Holland Tunnel in New York and a building in Los Angeles. "We've been able to track terrorists' telephone conversations under this law," he says, "and it's going to run out if we don't get it renewed."
 
Grassley explains why he does not like how the House amended FISA. "They're going to put roadblocks into our FBI and security agencies' tracking [of] terrorist phone calls," he argues, "and we need to be on top of terrorists' communications because we have found out that we've been able to intervene and prevent terrorist activity."
 
He says because of FISA, the government also was able to recently put a stop to a terrorist plot to blow up American defense facilities in Germany.
 
The House, says the Iowa lawmaker, should have gone along with the Senate version. "[B]ecause what we did ... was a bipartisan approach," he states. "In the House they tend to be more partisan. Democrats don't seem to want to track terrorists."]