House Update: Terror Surveillance Bill

This just in...

Breaking News - House Republicans to force vote on whether Dems will authorize surveillance specifically against Osama Bin Laden, Al Qaeda, and other terrorist groups.
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This vote will happen later today. This amendment puts the Democrats in a simple position: do they want to please MoveOn.org extremists or do they want to keep America safe from terrorism?

Keep an eye out over here for more...

UPDATE: This just in...

Congressman Boehner is expected to deliver a Floor speech between 2:15 and 2:30 pm today. He will address the very critical need to empower U.S. intelligence officials – not government lawyers – with the tools they need to ensure the safety of American troops overseas and our national security.

U.S. House Floor action can be viewed on C-SPAN.

UPDATE 2:

House Dems are currently holding the FISA bill off the floor, scrambling to whip their moderates to vote against the motion to recommit. Right now, it would pass, so the Dems are holding the bill from the floor.

The Dems are apparently afraid of on up-or-down vote to protect the ability of our intelligence agencies to fight Osama Bin Laden, Al Qaeda, and other terrorist groups.

Situation Developing...

UPDATE 3:

House Democrats, typically, were unable to whip enough votes to get their way. The paper majority that can't get anything done. Today, they were against a simple vote on a Republican proposal to protect America's intelligence agencies ability to fight Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. That's it - they were against that and fought desperately today to kill it.

When they failed, they pulled the entire FISA bill.

The Motion to Recommit was designed to exempt terrorist organizations from falling under the FISA rules that require a court order in order to listen in to their communications. Of course, the Democrats balked because they saw their moderates and vulnerable freshmen voting were voting for it. Republicans put them in a real bind because they love to claim that we should be fighting al Qaeda and not in Iraq … well, this was their chance to put their names on that and they pulled it instead.