Fear and False Claims

The ad's play to public fear echoes the tactics used by the administration to put strong pressure on Congress. In an interview late last year with the El Paso Times, McConnell even went so far as to say that without quick approval of the law, "some Americans are going to die" because of continuing public discussion of the issue. The reporter asked McConnell how he makes the case that the new law is important.

El Paso Times: You have to do public relations, I assume?

McConnell: Well, one of the things you do is you talk to reporters. ... The fact we're doing it this way means that some Americans are going to die, because we do this mission unknown to the bad guys because they're using a process that we can exploit and the more we talk about it, the more they will go with an alternative means. ...

El Paso Times: So you're saying that the reporting and the debate in Congress means that some Americans are going to die?

McConnell: That's what I mean. Because we have made it so public.

Unless McConnell is clairvoyant, it's going too far to proclaim that Americans "are going to die" because a wiretapping bill is being publicly debated.

The ad is careful to specify that "new" surveillance has been crippled. That's because any eavesdropping orders issued under the Protect America Act of last August would be in effect for up to a year, so there's no imminent danger of the communications of known terrorists.

The ad's closing assertion is that the House should "do its job" by passing the Senate bill to "keep us all safe." But if anything in the murky debate over spycraft is clear, it's that the Constitution doesn't make it "the job" of the House to rubber-stamp Senate-passed bills, or bend to the wishes of the president.

Update Feb. 29: Andrew C. McCarthy, director of the foundation's Center for Law and Counterterrorism, responded to this article.  McCarthy's arguments leave us still convinced that the ad contains false claims and twists the facts, but we have posted his comments as a "supporting document" both as a courtesy to FDD and so that our readers may judge for themselves.

He states that a "radical" court decision now applies FISA's "arduous" probable-cause requirements to interception of foreign-to-foreign communications. He also dismisses the House bill as "unacceptable," saying President Bush has threatened to veto it.