Democrats have once again allowed childlike emotions to stand in the way of their lawmaking duties. Due to overwhelming support for a Republican amendment to the Restore Act of 2007, House Democrats have pulled the bill altogether.

Republicans complained that the Democrats’ FISA “reform” bill (called the RESTORE Act of 2007) would prohibit timely surveillance of terror groups by requiring the intelligence community to obtain a FISA court order to listen to terrorist communications.

House Republicans offered a motion to fix the bill. They wanted to make it clear that the intelligence community could conduct surveillance on Osama Bin Laden, al Qaeda, or any other foreign terrorist organization without waiting for a FISA court to issue a warrant every time.

That would have gutted the Democrats’ bill, which said intelligence officials would have to obtain a FISA court order to listen to foreign terror suspects, including Osama bin Laden, who operate overseas but who may have had contact with people in the U.S. or who may have called a U.S. number.

When it looked like Democrats would go along with the Republicans’ motion, Democratic leaders pulled their bill from consideration.

“The Democrats’ full-scale retreat on FISA this evening was spurred by a single amendment — a provision that would’ve made clear that nothing in their bill could be used to prevent U.S. agents from tracking al Qaeda and other foreign terrorists abroad,” said House Republican Whip Roy Blunt of Missouri on Wednesday.

Jay at Stop The ACLU has the roundup on FISA:

Red State:

House Democrats were unable to whip enough votes to get their way. Today, they were against a simple vote on a Republican proposal to protect America’s intelligence agencies ability to fight Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. That’s it - they were against that and fought desperately today to kill it.

When they failed, they pulled the entire FISA bill.

Sister Toldjah:

This is just one more reminder of how much it stinks to have the Keystone Cops in charge of the House and Senate in a time of war. These people don’t have a freaking clue.

Weekly Standard:

This is a reckless way to handle national security. House Democrats have once again shut Republicans out of the debate completely (as they did just yesterday in debate on the Internet Tax Freedom Act). They’ve used their position of power to give terrorists working with WMD a ‘grace period’ while U.S. intelligence agencies go to court for permission to tap them. They’ve abused the process to preserve the fatal flaws in their own bill.

Democrats can pound their chest as hard as they wish and proclaim they have what it takes to protect our Country from future attacks, but actions speak louder than words. This is not an issue of American citizens being spied on without a warrant because of suspicions they may be involved with one plot or another. The Republican amendment specifically adresses Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, along with any other orginization Congress themselves declare to be a terrorist orginization. My question to Democrats is what would be the purpose of declaring Al Qaeda a terrorist orginization if you are unwilling to take necessary steps to defend yourself against them?

It is sickening that Democrats have scrapped this bill altogether simply because Republicans wanted the ability to spy on orginizations which Congress deems as enemies.

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Congress, Politics, Terrorism