Washington, D.C. Congresswoman Jane Harman (D-CA), Chair of the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Intelligence and Terrorism Risk Assessment, today issued the following statement in response to comments made yesterday by President Bush on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in an interview on FOX News Sunday.

Here we go again.

Yesterday, the President told Chris Wallace that “a big part of the Democratic Party is against giving our intelligence officers the tools necessary to protect America” and implied that Democrats want to extend the same protections to terrorists that American citizens enjoy.

Both claims are false.

Democrats do not want to repeal FISA, and FISA does not expire at the end of the week.

Democrats want to clarify that foreign-to-foreign communications between terrorists are not covered by FISA.  So far as I know, no one in Congress disagrees with that.

The issue before Congress concerns whether to amend or replace the Protect America Act (PAA), which does expire on Saturday.  The PAA was hastily considered last August and many of its provisions are ill-advised.

The House has already passed a responsible bill to replace the PAA.  The Senate is considering a different version tomorrow.  Even if the PAA expires, warrants covering a large number of targets are valid for one year – at least until August.

While the threat of attack on our country remains high, threat briefings to Congress last week by DNI McConnell and CIA Director Hayden contained no new information.

Congress should not be stampeded into thinking the threat has increased – it has not.

Using FISA as a political football is shameful.  It had overwhelming bipartisan support when it was enacted in 1978.  Three decades later, that remains the case.