Democrats Agree With Bush that the Fourth Amendment is Irrelevant!

This post is a little late. But, I had to let my bile level lower before I could post it.

From the NYT's:

House Passes Changes in Eavesdropping Program

By CARL HULSE and EDMUND L. ANDREWS

WASHINGTON, Aug. 4 — Under pressure from President Bush, the House gave final approval Saturday to changes in a terrorism surveillance program, despite serious objections from many Democrats about the scope of the executive branch’s new eavesdropping power.

Racing to complete a final rush of legislation before a scheduled monthlong break, the House voted 227 to 183 to endorse a measure the Bush administration said was needed to keep pace with communications technology in the effort to track terrorists overseas.

“The intelligence community is hampered in gathering essential information about terrorists,” said Representative Lamar Smith, Republican of Texas.

The House Democratic leadership had severe reservations about the proposal and an overwhelming majority of Democrats opposed it. Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the measure “does violence to the Constitution of the United States.”

But with the Senate already in recess, Democrats confronted the choice of allowing the administration’s bill to reach the floor and be approved mainly by Republicans or letting it die.

If it had stalled, that would have left Democratic lawmakers, long anxious about appearing weak on national security issues, facing an August spent fending off charges from Republicans that they had left Americans exposed to threats.

Despite the political risks, many Democrats argued they should stand firm against the initiative, saying it granted the administration far too much latitude to initiate surveillance without judicial review.

They said the White House was using the specter of terrorism to weaken Americans’ privacy rights and give more power to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, an official Democrats say has proved himself untrustworthy.

“Legislation should not be passed in response to fear-mongering,” said Representative Rush D. Holt, Democrat of New Jersey.

The legislation makes changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA.

There was no indication that lawmakers were responding to new intelligence warnings. Rather, Democrats were responding to administration pleas that a recent secret court ruling had created a legal obstacle in monitoring foreign communications relayed over the Internet.

They also appeared worried about the political repercussions of being perceived as interfering with intelligence gathering. But the disputes were significant enough that they are likely to resurface before the end of the year.

Democrats have expressed concerns that the administration is reaching for powers that go well beyond solving what officials have depicted as narrow technical issues in the current law.

As I am sure you have already read the whole piece, you are suitably outraged at how some Democrats caved into the Republican Fear Mongering and were willing to subvert the U.S. Constitution and its protection of the citizenry.

My bile level is rising again.