White House Press circus on "surveillance"
 
Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 01:49:58 -0600 (CST)


http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/02/20080215-6.html

For Immediate Release Office of the Press Secretary February 15, 2008

Press Gaggle by Scott Stanzel James S. Brady Press Briefing Room

RSS Feed Press Briefings

9:31 A.M. EST

MR.  STANZEL:  Good morning. I'll go through the President's schedule and 
take your questions.

[snip]

So with that, I will take your questions.

Q Scott, where do you go from here on the surveillance thing? Is the 
administration prepared to do any stopgap measures while Congress is away?

MR.  STANZEL:  Well, it's unfortunate, as you heard the President talk 
about this morning, that the House is departing Washington for 12 days off 
for Presidents Day. And it is important, I think -- as you heard the 
President, it's important to note a few things.
 	It's our view that leaders in Washington have no greater 
responsibility than to protect the American people. But at this time, this 
gap that we closed six months ago is going to reopen. And as Director 
McConnell has said, the Protect America Act has helped us obtain valuable 
insight on terrorist activities and it has led to the disruption of 
terrorist attacks.  And unfortunately, tomorrow night that law will 
expire.  So we will continue to work with members of Congress about the 
importance. But the issue really here is why is the House leadership, 
Democratic leadership, blocking a bipartisan bill?

Q Are you going to reach out to the telecommunications companies and ask 
them to keep helping you in this policy?

MR.  STANZEL:  Well, those are conversations that are ongoing. And as you 
would remember, prospective liability was passed in August, and that gave 
liability protection to companies to assist going forward. That 
prospective liability comes into question with the expiration of the 
Protect America Act.
 	So as you heard the leaders talk about, those companies are 
increasingly reluctant to help their country and help us track the 
activities of terrorists in foreign lands. It becomes more and more 
difficult as time goes on to obtain their cooperation on these issues, and 
that is of great concern.

Yes, Helen?

Q What right does the President have to tell any company or any person in 
this country to break the law?

MR. STANZEL: I -- what's your point?

Q No warrants and so forth; that they can go and spy on us without any 
warrants?

MR.  STANZEL:  The Protect America Act was passed by Congress last August, 
as you know, and signed into law. So it is a lawful program that is 
expiring tomorrow night.

Q Well, if it's lawful, why would you not get a warrant? It still 
prevails, doesn't it?

MR.  STANZEL: Because it's -- in 1978, as we talked about, during that 
period, in 1978, the law, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, was 
passed, and that law was designed to help us gain intelligence on foreign 
targets in foreign lands. What we're not wanting to do here is to extend 
constitutional protections to terrorists in foreign countries.
 	So it's important that this law was modernized. It was modernized 
in August.  As we talked about then, that the law was significantly 
outdated.  You could have sat in that chair in 1978 and not had the 
ability to make a phone call from a cell phone; today you can. Today, you 
can send an e-mail from anywhere in the world via a Blackberry. The law 
was outdated, so it needed to be improved. It was improved. But Congress 
set a deadline for it to expire so they could review it some more and that 
-- they missed that deadline. We gave them a 15-day extension.
 	The Senate used that time to pass a bipartisan bill that received 
over two-thirds support from the United States Senate, has a majority of 
support in the United States House. But the House leadership, which seems 
to be beholden to class-action trial attorneys in this matter, refused to 
let it come up for a vote. So they are more interested in protecting the 
interests of one of their constituencies than in protecting the interests 
of Americans.

Q That's a terrible indictment for you to say. They want to obey the law.

MR.  STANZEL: And we are obeying the law and it is important that this law 
be improved and modernized.

Jeremy.

Q All Americans should be wire-tapped?

MR.  STANZEL:  Helen, your facts are not correct here. If a foreign 
terrorist is calling to the United States, we want to know what they're 
saying.

Q How do you know they're a foreign terrorist?

MR.  STANZEL:  Because they're in foreign lands and we have to be able to 
track foreign terrorists in foreign lands and what they're doing.

Q Any foreigner --

MR.  STANZEL:  You may want to extend constitutional protections to 
terrorists, but that is not something that we want to do.

Q You can't automatically call every foreigner a terrorist.

MR. STANZEL: Jeremy?

Q Scott, two questions. One on this issue. The comment that you just made 
about the House being "beholden" to class-action trial attorneys -- 
Democrats have accused the White House of politicizing this. With a 
comment like that, how do you respond that those kinds of charges that 
this is just a political theater game?

MR. STANZEL: Well, the Director of National Intelligence has indicated on 
numerous occasions that, without retroactive immunity, the private sector 
-- actually, this is from the committee report from the Senate 
Intelligence Committee, I would refer you to that, bipartisan, came out of 
the committee, 13 to two -- "Without retroactive immunity, the private 
sector might be unwilling to cooperate with lawful government requests in 
the future without unnecessary court involvement and protracted 
litigation.  The possible reduction in intelligence that might result from 
this delay is simply unacceptable for the safety of our nation."
 	That is what a broad bipartisan majority in the Senate 
Intelligence Committee said about retroactive liability.  That's 
important. The President, as you remember in the debate in August said we 
need to give the intelligence community the tools they need to protect 
this country, and if they don't have those, then I will find it 
unacceptable.
 	In November, we told the House that their proposal and their 
approach was unacceptable.  So -- and that's a statement of administration 
policy. We need these tools, we need that retroactive liability.
 	So why is it that House Democrat leadership is blocking the vote, 
simple up or down vote on a bipartisan proposal that received nearly 70 
majority support in the House -- why is it that they are blocking that?

[snip]

Q I was kind of wondering where you go from here, back on the Protect 
America Act. I mean, is there any room for negotiation at all? I mean, if 
immunity is the issue, are there other things you could do, like cap 
liability? Or is it just you have these two intractable positions and how 
do you accomplish --

MR.  STANZEL:  Well, I think -- I think that, obviously it's our view that 
the House should take up the bipartisan Senate-passed bill. That would 
pass the House. That much is clear. So a majority in the House of 
Representatives wants the Senate-passed bill to come up for a vote and 
pass. So that's where we are. If that were to happen, we could go about 
the business of protecting Americans and put this issue behind us. 
Unfortunately, the House Democrat leadership has not taken that approach.
 	So I haven't seen other ideas out there. It seems that the House 
is committed to going on their 12-day recess over Presidents Day and that 
is unfortunate.  So certainly, if there are other ideas out there, those 
are ones that we would take a look at. However, it seems simple enough, 
the solution is well within grasp.

Q Just real quick. Why not have another -- I know you guys are sick of 
these, but another 15-day -- I mean, if the threat is so grave, isn't that 
better --

MR.  STANZEL:  Simply passing -- Congress -- you must remember that 
Congress set its own deadline. They set a six-month deadline to review 
these issues.  We felt that that was plenty long enough, and the fact that 
it was going to expire is not something that we supported in the first 
place. The terrorist threat is not going to expire.
 	So they asked for a 15-day extension to again review these things. 
But I think as you heard, I think it was Mr. Boehner talk about, it calls 
into question their desire to really address these issues in a full way if 
we are doing extension after extension after extension, and that is no way 
for the intelligence community to go about its planning.  And it causes 
greater concern, I think, to our ability to work with the private sector 
to make sure that we're able to track what terrorists are planning 
overseas.

Q But why isn't a temporary extension still better than nothing? I mean, I 
understand why you want to get the retroactive immunity and why you think 
that's important. But if the leadership isn't offering that, why wouldn't 
another temporary extension be better than nothing?

MR.  STANZEL:  I would put it another way: What is it that they need more 
time for? The solution is there. The solution is before them. But they are 
blocking the solution. Why are they blocking the solution? For partisan 
reasons. They are blocking that because they are beholden to class-action 
trial attorneys.

Q But given that they seem to be intractable right now, wouldn't you still 
prefer to let the law keep going for a while, than to have it expire?

MR.  STANZEL:  Well, an extension was rejected by a majority in the House 
of Representatives.

Q Right, and I'm asking why, given that they're allowing that to happen, 
it seems to me to call into question some of these statements that now 
there are going to be gaps -- dangerous gaps in intelligence-gathering.

MR. STANZEL: There will be.

Q Well, I'm saying, if you believe that, wouldn't you rather have --

MR.  STANZEL:  Well, it's up to House leaders to figure out how we should 
protect our country. The solution is there before them. So the majority in 
the House supports the solution before them. So all it has to have is an 
up or down vote; simple as that.

Q What do you say to Nancy Pelosi, though, who -- she accused the 
President yesterday -- I know you heard this -- of fear-mongering. She 
said, obviously you can still pursue the targets that are covered by the 
current law; right now you can still pursue any investigation that has 
already been initiated. And then new ones, all you'd have to do is get a 
warrant.

MR.  STANZEL: Right, but the warrant process is the exact process that was 
problematic. In 1978, the law wasn't designed to have warrants on foreign 
targets -- plain and simple. And how fast the FISA Court acts is not the 
issue;  it's how long it takes to put together a very lengthy application 
leading up to the FISA Court acting. So that's problematic.  And so how 
would we respond? We are very concerned about the safety of Americans. We 
all should be concerned about the safety of Americans. That is why the 
Senate took the action that it did, in a broad bipartisan way, to pass the 
Protect America Act. The House should do the same.

Q You can get a warrant after the fact.

Q How much serious consideration did the President give to delaying his 
trip to Africa? I mean, he mentioned that yesterday and then he decided to 
go ahead and go anyway. Was it an idle threat?

MR.  STANZEL:  No, that was an offer. I wouldn't call it a threat at all. 
It was an offer to stay here -- if the House wanted to stay here and work 
on these issues, and if he could be of assistance to them to get this work 
done, he was willing to delay his trip.

Q But he knew at that time that the House had already decided to adjourn.

MR.  STANZEL:  Well, I don't know that their decision was made final. But 
certainly, he wouldn't have said it if he wasn't prepared to delay his 
trip.

Q And why is he going -- is it simply --

MR.  STANZEL:  Because the House has made it clear that they don't intend 
to act.

Q May I ask about the meeting with the U.N. Secretary General, 
specifically on Kosovo?  What is the message to the U.N. from the United 
States on Kosovo at this point? You guys move ahead, you've done your job, 
the EU will now take over? Or do you want the process still to be in the 
Secretary Council? How do you want it --

MR.  STANZEL: Well, I can't speak for the U.N., Andre, but in terms of our 
position, the decision -- our position hasn't changed, obviously. We are 
working with our allies, working with Kosovo and with Serbia. We believe 
that the prompt implementation of the Ahtisaari plan is the right 
approach.  That is where we have been. So our position hasn't changed.

Q Right, but it seems like the EU is now taking over. They are sending a 
mission there.  What is there for the United Nations, for the Secretary 
Council to do, from your point of view?

MR. STANZEL: I can try to get more information for you on that, or you can 
check in with the State Department. But I'd have to take that question.

Q I'm just still not clear on the question about the -- why the 
administration decided that, hey, we're not going to do an extension.

MR. STANZEL: I would take -- the question is premises on the fact that an 
extension was available.  An extension is not. A majority in the House of 
Representatives rejected that approach.

Q But that's based on --

Q -- said he would veto --

MR.  STANZEL:  They've known since November -- they've known since 
November that our approach has been very clear, that --

Q But if the President is serious about protecting the United States, 
which is the point that he has made in now three statements in three days 
about this, that if this is so vital and that the process is so cumbersome 
to get the kind of warrants you need through the previous process, before 
PAA, then why not tell the Republicans on the Hill, his party, that, okay, 
you know what, we need an extension, to continue doing it the way that he 
wants --

MR. STANZEL: Democrats are in control of the House of Representatives. If 
they're serious they will bring up the bipartisan Senate-passed bill for 
an up or down vote. Simple as that.

Q Can you speak to what actually happens now logistically, when the 
legislation expires, what's the process? Are the wiretaps going to stop? 
Are you going to start pursuing the warrants? What's going to happen?

MR.  STANZEL:  Well, those may be questions that are best addressed to the 
intelligence community. But certainly the tools that we have will be 
weakened.  As Kathleen mentioned, some of the efforts that are currently 
underway have an opportunity to continue; new efforts would have to go 
through the old process. So -- but further, what concerns us the most is 
the ability to compel the assistance of private companies to continue to 
assist with this effort. If we don't have the help of these private 
companies, we don't have a program, plain and simple.
 	So that -- with each step and each time this issue seems to falter 
in Congress, the companies become increasingly reluctant, out of a 
responsibility as I think the leaders mentioned, to their shareholders, to 
figure out if they want to be subject to these billion-dollar class-action 
lawsuits. And that is not something that is good for the companies, it's 
not something that's good for the security of the American people.

All right, thank you.

END

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