Intelligence reform charade: Republican insiders teamed up with the Bush White House and liberal-left Democrats to pass dangerous 9/11 Commission recommendations.

"Maine Republican Susan Collins scored a victory for centrists and vanquished some powerful House conservatives in the process when Congress cleared the intelligence overhaul bill last week." That's how Congressional Quarterly described Senator Collins' triumph on so-called intelligence reform, in a December 10 article entitled, "Intelligence Deal Underscores Moderates' Influence." Collins led the Senate negotiators in the House-Senate conference that was appointed in October to iron out differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill, one of the most significant pieces of legislation in 2004.

Collins' one-two victory punch (on December 7 in the House and December 8 in the Senate) was achieved, Congressional Quarterly reported, "with the assistance of another moderate in the opposing party, Connecticut Democratic Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman." Yes, according to Congressional Quarterly and the rest of the Establishment media cartel, Joe Lieberman and Sue Collins are "moderates," "centrists." They are, we are told, rational, reasonable, thoughtful, independent-minded, and courageous, not like those dogmatic, narrow-minded, inflexible House "conservatives." Collins and Lieberman are members of the 15member Senate Centrist Coalition, which, besides Collins, includes five other Republicans: Arizonan John McCain, fellow Mainer Olympia Snowe, Pennsylvanian Arlen Specter, George Voinovich of Ohio, and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island.

What does moderate or centrist mean in this context? Would you define Teddy Kennedy or Dianne Feinstein as "moderates"? Sane people would not. However, many of the so-called Senate centrists regularly post voting records that are nearly as bad as Ted Kennedy's and Hillary Clinton's. In this magazine's most recent "Conservative Index," which gives a cumulative score of congressional voting records, Lieberman scored an abject 29 (out of a possible score of 100). * Chafee posted a score of only 30. Snowe, one of the "moderates" from Maine, was only slightly better with a 35, and "centrist" Collins received a 40. Notorious liberal Democrats were in the same ball park: Senators Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton had scores of 32 and 28, respectively.

At any rate, we can credit passage of the so-called intelligence reform bill to a coordinated all-out tag team effort by Senate "centrists," the Bush White House, 9/11 Commission members, congressional Democrats, and the GOP leadership in the House and Senate. These forces, together with ample assistance from the liberal-left media, successfully steamrolled conservative opposition in the House.

It appears that we can expect to see repeat performances of this coalition on more legislation when the new Congress convenes. "It's a terrific model for getting bipartisan legislation through Congress," Collins told the Quarterly. "Many senators came up to me on the floor and said this is the way the Senate should operate."

Backdoor Dealings

In the final weeks of the 108th Congress, the Bush administration and members of the 9/11 Commission stepped up pressure on Congress to pass legislation implementing the recommendations contained in the commission's final report. There were significant differences between the Senate's bill, S. 2845, passed on October 6, and the House version, H.R. 10, passed on October 8. One of the most contentious differences concerned refusal by the Senate to incorporate features into their bill that would deal with immigration and border control, arguably the most pressing security issue facing America, especially with regard to combating terrorism. In this the Senate was following the lead of the Bush White House, which has done everything within its power to push for open borders--especially between the U.S. and Mexico--and to thwart all genuine immigration reform efforts.

On October 18, the White House sent a 10-page letter to congressional leaders urging swift action on reconciling the differences in their legislation. The administration's letter informed House leaders that it "strongly opposes" the House bill's provisions to speed the deportation process, which now can drag on for years, as aliens and activist lawyers from immigrants' rights groups use loopholes in the system to stymie all removal efforts. The administration also opposed other immigration reforms in the House bill, including banning states from issuing driver's licenses to illegal aliens.

Reps. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) and James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) fought tenaciously to keep immigration provisions in the legislation, but neither of them was appointed to the House-Senate conference. Nevertheless, Sensenbrenner, as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, exercises considerable influence in the Republican-controlled House. Sensenbrenner frequently reminded his House colleagues and members of the media that due to our lax immigration controls, the 9/11 hijackers had been able to acquire over 60 driver's licenses, which were essential to carrying out their terrorist attack.

Collins and other senators said the driver's license ban was omitted from the final version of the legislation because it was beyond the scope of a bill aimed at streamlining the management of intelligence agencies. This "beyond the scope" argument was ludicrous, especially in light of all the other issues that were crammed into the legislation having nothing to do with "streamlining" intelligence--such as providing more foreign aid to Afghanistan and other Middle East countries, creating an International Youth Opportunity Fund, supporting a Middle East Partnership initiative, and supporting various United Nations programs, institutions, and initiatives.

Presenting another major roadblock to the conference report was Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. Congressman Hunter opposed the intelligence reorganization on the grounds it could confuse the chain of command for military intelligence, denying field commanders the information they need on the battlefront. House Speaker Dennis Hastert had enough votes to pass the legislation over the objections of Sensenbrenner and Hunter, but didn't want to anger House conservatives, whose support he would need on upcoming battles in the 109th Congress.

When Congress adjourned for Thanksgiving, reconciliation on a number of key points did not look hopeful before the end of the year. The White House, insisting it must have the legislation before the end of the year, pulled out all the stops. President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and other administration officials swarmed Reps. Hunter, Sensenbrenner, and other House Republican holdouts. Sensenbrenner held fast, but Hunter yielded, placated by a one-word escape valve crafted by Senators Collins and Lieberman.

Here is an account from Congressional Quarterly, on December 11, concerning the effort to overcome Rep. Hunter's opposition:

   On the evening of Dec.
   5, Joseph I. Lieberman,
   one the most influential
   senators seeking a deal
   on legislation to overhaul
   the nation's intelligence gathering,
   was attending a performance at the
   Kennedy Center when his Blackberry
   buzzed to signal the arrival of an urgent
   e-mail.

      The Connecticut Democrat was
   taking a break from the nearly nonstop
   negotiations to revive the legislation,
   which had come close to collapse
   before Thanksgiving. But his
   Republican partner in the talks, Sen.
   Susan Collins of Maine, was working
   late that Sunday, trying to come
   up with language that would mollify
   those House Republicans insistent on
   shielding the existing military chain
   of command from the powers of a
   new director of national intelligence.

      What about the word "abrogate,"
   Collins queried. After exchanging
   messages back and forth, Lieberman
   and Collins signed off on that one
   word, and a historic compromise was
   on the way to being born. The next
   day, one of the primary holdouts on
   the bill, Chairman Duncan Hunter of
   the House Armed Services Committee,
   agreed to vote for bill language
   promising that the powers of a new
   national intelligence director would
   not "abrogate" the military chain of
   command, paving the way for its
   passage.

      "That apparently brought Mr.
   Hunter around," Lieberman said of
   the California Republican, and soon
   thereafter a conference agreement
   was sealed, just four months after the
   drive for a bill began.

Did the "abrogate" word-switch substantively change the legislation and solve a real problem, or merely provide political cover for House members who were retreating before the administration's all-out assault? According to Hunter the word change "means when somebody is in a shooting battle, they get the information when they need it." "In my estimation," Hunter said "it builds a fence around the chain of command."

Senator Collins, apparently, sees it more as a matter of semantic gamesmanship. She says she was willing to add the language to appease Hunter because she believes it will "in no way impede the powers of the director of national intelligence."

"Illusion Legislation"

With Hunter on board, Hastert called for a vote on December 7 (Pearl Harbor Day). The measure passed easily, with almost total support from the Democrats. The final vote: 336 to 75, with 22 members not voting. It was another case of the Bush White House joining forces with Democrats and liberal "centrist" Republicans to steamroll House conservatives, who have been some of the president's most loyal supporters. It was a replay of the political chicanery and arm twisting employed to pass other socialistic, budget-busting legislation, such as the president's No Child Left Behind and Medicare prescription bills.

"It is a piece of illusion legislation," said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of California, one of 67 conservative Republicans in the House who voted against the intelligence bill. "It is trying to make people feel better because they think something is being done. It will be duplicative and an impediment to getting things done in the intelligence community."

The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act may prove to be far more dangerous than Congressman Rohrabacher's comments indicate. Police states are not built in a day. While no one is suggesting that the new legislation will create a Gestapo or KGB overnight, it does not require a hyperactive imagination to envisage the newly structured intelligence community moving rapidly in that direction.

The public and members of Congress have not had the opportunity to carefully weigh and debate this complex legislation. How many trap doors may be hidden in clever wordsmithing (as in Sen. Collins' "abrogate" word trick) is anyone's guess. In the name of fighting terrorism, it grants much broader wiretapping, surveillance, search, arrest, detention, and prosecution powers to federal officials. These are powers, history shows, that governments are always inclined to turn against their own peoples.

The new law breaks down many of the barriers between federal, state, and local governments, thereby undermining key constitutional checks and balances against the accumulation of despotic power. The Information Sharing Environment (ISE) provisions in the legislation look eerily similar to the Orwellian Total Information Awareness (TIA) program slapped down by Congress in 2003.

These and other troubling features mandate that in addition to addressing the badly needed immigration and border security reforms that were ignored in the legislation, the 109th Congress must also carefully examine this hastily drafted and hastily passed law and undo the damage that it has done.

* This magazine's "Conservative Index" is available online at: www.thenewamerican.com/focus/ci/ index.htm