It is well past time to renew the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Our nation has been left vulnerable since the previous legislation expired February 16th. As a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, I am extremely concerned about our national security and deeply troubled that our intelligence community has been prevented from doing work needed to protect Americans. We do not monitor phone conversations, emails or finances of suspected terrorists and terrorist allies as we used to – and the enemy knows it. It is time for us to strengthen, not weaken, terrorist surveillance.

Since coming into power last January, Democrat leadership has time and again put politics before the safety of our nation and its citizens. Instead of prioritizing arguably the most important security issue, they have dilly-dallied for almost a year.

Enough is enough. The intelligence community must have the tools necessary to operate in the 21st century against 21st century enemies. Director of National Intelligence, Mike McConnell, the man charged with overseeing the intelligence community has repeatedly told us of the urgency to modernize the FISA law:

“We must urgently close the gap in our current ability to effectively collect foreign intelligence. The current FISA law does not allow us to be effective. Modernizing this law is essential for the Intelligence Community to be able to provide warning of threats to the country.”

It is time for us to stand up and force the Democrat leadership of this House to do their job and bring a FISA modernization bill before this body so the intelligence community can have every tool at its disposal to protect the United States of America.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 10th, 2008 at 2:50 pm and is filed under Politics, Homeland Security .