With Liberty and Justice for Some by Glenn Greenwald Page A

permitted even if patriotic motives are involved.) But none of that mattered much. So absolute was the telecoms’ control over Congress and the lawmaking process that their success was virtually a fait accompli as soon as they decided that they wanted retroactive immunity.
    The first public move made by immunity advocates came in the form of an op-ed published in the Washington Post on May 21, 2007, by Bush’s director of national intelligence (DNI), Admiral Michael McConnell. It was a stealthy opening to the campaign. McConnell said nothing about immunity, focusing instead on an apparently unrelated matter: he repeatedly called for wholly unspecified “updates” and “changes” to FISA that would expand the government’s powers of eavesdropping on Americans.
    But McConnell’s central argument—that such updates were needed because FISA had “not been changed to reflect technological advancements” since its original enactment—was a red herring. FISA had been changed numerous times for exactly that purpose, including shortly after the 9/11 attacks, when Congress agreed to every expansion and modernization of FISA powers requested by the Bush administration. Indeed, on signing the post-9/11 updates to FISA into law, Bush told the nation:
    The bill before me takes account of the new realities and dangers posed by modern terrorists…. This new law I sign today will allow surveillance of all communications used by terrorists, including e-mails, the Internet, and cell phones. As of today, we’ll be able to better meet the technological challenges posed by this proliferation of communications technology.
     
    The fact that McConnell’s op-ed called for revisions to FISA based on a patently false claim indicated that the true reasons why the Bush administration wanted a new eavesdropping law were not yet on view. But these reasons would not remain hidden for very long.
    In July 2007, Bush officials followed up on McConnell’s op-ed by proclaiming that there was an emergency need to revise FISA because its scope was too limited and because the eavesdropping authorizations on which they were relying were set to expire. The claims were dubious at best, but they had their effect. As the Washington Post reported, McConnell and other Bush officials secretly met with leading Democrats and warned them that failure to enact the revisions proposed by the White House—and to do so by the very fast deadline the White House had imposed—could prevent the administration from protecting the Capitol from serious terrorist plots, plots which intelligence agencies had been recently picking up in vague “chatter.” The new bill the Bush administration wanted would drastically expand eavesdropping powers and allow spy agencies to act without a warrant, thus essentially legalizing the program that had been exposed by the New York Times .
    The demand that the Democratic-led Congress enact a statute vesting the administration with increased eavesdropping powers was audacious indeed; after all, Democrats had spent months complaining that their efforts to learn about the Bush NSA program had been completely stonewalled. In other words, Democrats were being told to legalize and expand an eavesdropping program that had been carried out illegally for years and that they knew virtually nothing about. What’s more, they were being pressed to do so in such a rapid timeframe, and under the specter of such grave warnings, that they barely had time even to learn what exactly they were supposed to approve.
    But as they always did whenever the Bush administration invoked terrorism, the Democratic Congress quickly and meekly obeyed. At 10:00 p.m. on Saturday, August 4, 2007 (the day after Congress was scheduled to begin its summer recess), with virtually no debate, and with most of the caucus having little idea what they were voting on, they passed an “emergency” eavesdropping bill. Oh-so-subtly christened the Protect America Act, the bill