Washington Memo: A Safe Vote on Terror

By James Carney

The still new and not always nimble Democratic majority in Congress faced a difficult choice before leaving for the monthlong summer recess: either vote to grant the Bush Administration the expansive new powers it demanded to eavesdrop on both foreigners and Americans without warrants or risk being accused of negligence if terrorists strike on U.S. soil while lawmakers relax at the beach. Weeks of warnings from the intelligence community about increased chatter of the kind that preceded 9/11 only spiked the Democrats' anxiety. "You have to decide what you believe," said a senior House Democrat. "Because if they're telling the truth and--God forbid--there's an attack, we'll be blamed."

What had been a bipartisan consensus to reconcile the 1978 law governing the use of domestic wiretapping with the modern era of e-mail servers and mobile phones turned bitter and partisan when the Administration demanded more changes, including one granting the power to oversee the electronic-surveillance program to the Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, the Cabinet official who has the least credibility with Congress (and with the rest of the country, for that matter). In the end, 16 Democratic Senators and 41 Representatives concluded that the risk of being maligned as soft on terror wasn't worth taking. With Republicans in lockstep, the numbers were plenty; the 14-page bill was rushed through in an emergency weekend session. The President quickly signed it into law.

Democrats consoled themselves by insisting that the new law expire in six months. But any effort to narrow its scope in half a year will surely be vetoed by this President. As for his successor, what are the chances that he, or she, will want to make it a priority to "take away the tools that America's spy agencies need to fight terrorism?" When it's put that way--and it will be--it's easy to imagine the law remaining as is for years to come. Such is the price of a worry-free vacation.