Although the unnamed civil libertarians (well actually one of them is named, Caroline Fredrickson, of the ACLU in DC, but only in passing at the end of the article) get a paragraph or two with no substantive analysis of their position -- and God knows that there are enough outspoken opponents of making the FISA abuses permanent that it stretches credulity to think that Lichtblau could not find a single opponent of Bush's position to go on the record -- the unnamed FISA hawks who want to finish the job of shredding the Bill of Rights get paragraphs and paragraphs about their arguments
But government and congressional officials said in interviews that they saw it as a dangerous step backward. A return to the old rules, they said, would mean that numerous government lawyers, analysts, and linguists would once again have to prepare individual warrants, potentially thousands of them, for surveillance of terrorist targets overseas.
Telecommunications companies would also have to spend considerable time shutting down existing wiretaps, and then to start them up again if ordered under new warrants, officials said. In some instances, the broad orders given to the companies starting last August cover tens of thousands of overseas phone numbers and e-mail addresses at one time, people with knowledge of the orders said.
A senior intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the administration was concerned that reverting to the older standards and requiring individual warrants for each wiretap would create a severe gap in overseas intelligence by raising the bar for foreign surveillance collection.
In some cases, the government might simply be unable to establish in court why it suspected that a foreign target was connected to terrorism. Part of the problem, officials said, is that communications going from one foreign country to another sometimes travel through a telephone switch on American soil and, under some interpretations of the older rules, could not be tapped without an individual warrant. (Wiretaps aimed at Americans already require individual warrants issued by a secret court, known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court, or FISA court.)
Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey has described the idea of reverting to the older standards of foreign surveillance as "unthinkable," adding, "I still hope and actually think that it won’t happen."
Even some Democrats, at odds with the White House for months over the surveillance issue, said they were worried about the summer scenario. "Until August, we’re O.K.," said one senior Democratic congressional aide involved in the negotiations. "After August, we’re not O.K."
A second Democratic congressional official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said: "We don’t even want to get close to the expiration, because it will force the intelligence community to make preparations and transition back to the old system. Having to go back to the old way of doing things is problematic."
Surely Lichtblau could have picked up the phone and done more than call the ACLU in DC to get the arguments against the FISA reforms that the Administration is panting for. And there is no doubt that the arguments against FISA reform are better than what Lichtblau quotes Frederickson as saying:
"Why not just kick it down the road" through a short-term extension, she asked. "If there’s a need to do something, they should do the least harm possible."
"We don’t think this Congress should give President Bush the gold watch he’s looking for in authorizing his warrantless wiretapping program," Ms. Fredrickson said.
Finally, to add insult to this injury: Is there any reason for having given anonymity to the sources for this article? None that I can discern from the piece itself. Which would tend to put it in violation of the NYT policy on the use of unnamed sourfes. But what the hell. That never stopped the NYT before.
