NewsBusters readers are likely aware that Congress has for months been debating an amendment to 1978's Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to bring it up to date with technological and geopolitical changes in the past three decades.
Folks on the left view this modernization as an onerous intrusion on privacy rights, and have been preventing this bill -- which was originally signed into law on August 5, 2007, but expired in February -- from being renewed and made permanent.
On Wednesday, with Congress scheduled to adjourn for the Fourth of July recess, Orrin Hatch (R-Ut.) told his fellow Senators that the scare tactics being used by the left concerning this matter "feed the delusions of those who wear tinfoil hats around their house and think that 9/11 was an inside job" (video embedded right):
But I guess I shouldn't be surprised by the inclusion of these onerous oversight provisions which no previous which no previous Congress felt the need to add. How many times have we heard the claims the Protect America Act would permit the government to spy on innocent American families overseas, or on their vacations? Or innocent American soldiers overseas serving their country? Or innocent students, American students who are simply studying abroad? Painting this type of picture only feeds the delusions of those who wear tinfoil hats around their house and think that 9/11 was an inside job.
Was Hatch speaking about folks like this and/or this?
And, as for the abetters and enablers, maybe Hatch was referring to the fifteen Senators that voted against cloture concerning this bill on Wednesday.
Hmmm.
