Feb. 15 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush has a way of plunging the country into legally treacherous water, insisting it is perfectly safe to swim, then demanding a life jacket.
And you better toss him a preserver with the precise dimensions he specifies, or he'll accuse you of putting the whole country at risk.
He did it this week when he demanded Congress rescue not only him but telecommunications companies from almost five years of spying on Americans without court approval the law required.
Having coaxed the telecoms into swirling waters in 2001, assuring them they would be safe, the Bush administration now says that unless they get amnesty for their legal transgressions -- while not admitting any -- they just might not cooperate in the future.
And if they balk at helping, start building bomb shelters. The U.S. would have a tougher time finding out about terrorists' schemes and therefore a tougher time preventing attacks, which are being planned right now, Bush said.
``At this moment, somewhere in the world, terrorists are planning new attacks on our country,'' Bush said.
That, I don't doubt.
``Without this law,'' he said, ``our ability to prevent new attacks will be weakened.''
That is nonsense, and he knows it.
If it were true, Bush would have welcomed a stopgap measure the House was contemplating to give it time to work on a long- term solution to surveillance issues.
Pledging a Veto
Instead, Bush pledged to veto any extension of a temporary law he himself pushed last summer, a law that expires this weekend and which gives the telecoms protection for their future actions, but not those in the past.
If Bush believed his own rhetoric, then he would have to believe that his veto of that would have left the country less protected and more vulnerable.
If the danger is as imminent and as extreme as he says (it ``will make Sept. 11th pale by comparison'') then wouldn't it be unconscionably reckless to veto temporary protection and expose us to attack?
How worried can he be if he is willing to do that?
The answer is, not very. Nor should he be, for reasons I'll explain shortly.
Looking Reckless
Invoking Sept. 11 is a naked attempt to make Democrats look like they are the reckless ones if they don't give Bush what he wants.
He wants the House to abandon its previous intelligence surveillance bill, passed by a solid 227-187 back in November, and immediately adopt the one the Senate passed just this week.
He is trying to kill the House version because it wouldn't grant retroactive immunity to the telecoms, including AT&T Inc., in which I own stock. The Senate version would.
So rather than risk losing that provision in a House-Senate conference, which is the normal course, Bush resorted to scare tactics to try to force a quick adoption of amnesty for the companies he led astray.
In point of fact, America will be just as safe as it is now if Congress does nothing. Even if the temporary measure, the Protect America Act, lapses tomorrow, a key provision would live on for a year. Surveillance could continue on targets already identified.
New Targets
As for new targets, the Bush administration can listen in on their conversations and gather e-mail data, as long as it abides by the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and gets approval from a secret court. In cases of emergency, the administration can get after-the-fact approval.
``The president knows full well he has all the authority he needs to protect the American people,'' House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters yesterday.
But this White House resists judicial review and congressional independence.
And so Republicans, joined by some Democrats, voted down an attempt to extend the temporary Protect America Act, which actually gives the administration considerable power to conduct foreign surveillance. Then, they turned around and accused the Democrats of being unwilling to act quickly to protect the nation.
What the Democratic House leadership was unwilling to do was put the Senate version of the long-term bill to a vote a day after receiving it. Call this undemocratic if you want, because Republicans say they had garnered a majority of votes for the Senate version.
And that is what Bush was pushing for, a vote on the Senate version. That, or nothing.
As the week wound down, the combatants got wound up.
Republicans yesterday staged a walkout to protest the Democrats' unwillingness to bring the Senate version to a vote while finding enough time to vote on contempt of Congress resolutions against a former and a current White House aide.
Protecting the People
The way House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio put it, the Democrats were shoving aside ``a bill that would protect the American people from terrorists that want to kill us'' in favor of ``a partisan political stunt.''
Intelligence surveillance is a serious matter, indeed, and so is obedience to the law. Bush and the telecoms got themselves knee deep in muddy water when they ignored the law and spied on who knows how many Americans who were talking or e-mailing someone overseas from the presumed privacy of their own homes, cars or offices.
About 40 lawsuits are pending around the country seeking damages for this spying. Why shouldn't they proceed like any other lawsuit?
Why not let the judges and juries apply the law to the facts? Bush and his swimming partners invited it when they waded in where they shouldn't have.
(Ann Woolner is a Bloomberg news columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.)
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