Did hot days and hyped fears result in Bush's spy-power expansion?

RAW STORY

There's no doubt that Congressional members were facing heat as they mulled amending the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to expand President Bush's spy powers.

With triple digit August weather in Washington already looming, President Bush revved things up even more by threatening to extend the legislative session unless lawmakers authorized additional warrantless wiretapping powers. Over the following two days, the House and Senate passed bills that dramatically increased the Bush Administration's ability to eavesdrop on Americans' communications.

When asked why the broad expansion was adopted so suddenly instead of a narrower compromise Democrats offered, Senate Intelligence Committee spokeswoman Wendy Morigi told RAW STORY, "I could hypothesize they ran out of time. But I don't know. I don't have a good answer."

Some critics say hyped terror fears, classified intelligence leaks, politicized intelligence and legislative bullying by the administration, combined with a looming recess deadline, all allowed the president to profoundly expand his powers and usurp the Constitution.

"I think the PR campaign mounted by the administration ... created a level of pressure and potential for distortion and miscommunication that has not been paralleled in recent years," Center for National Security Studies deputy director Lisa Graves told RAW STORY. "It's a rather undemocratic approach to policy making. … The result is a very bad policy, in fact an unconstitutional policy, that's based on partial truths and whole sets of misinformation.".......