‘FISA for Dummies’

It took Speaker Paul Ryan going to the floor of the U.S. House to clear up confusion created by none other than President Trump himself to rescue a section of the FISA statute that is critical to protecting this nation from terrorism.

The successful ending — the House voted 256-164 for reauthorization — does not erase the horrifying sequence of events and the level of presidential ignorance that led to it.

“‘House votes on controversial FISA ACT today,’ ” Trump tweeted early yesterday morning, citing a “Fox and Friends” headline. “This is the act that may have been used, with the help of the discredited and phony Dossier, to so badly surveil and abuse the Trump Campaign by the previous administration and others?”

The White House, which officially supports reauthorization, was sent scrambling to “clarify” the president’s comments — a not unusual occurrence these days.

Later in the morning Trump tweeted, “Today’s vote is about foreign surveillance of foreign bad guys on foreign land. We need it! Get smart!”

Ryan followed up with a FISA 101 mini-lecture on the House floor:

“It’s a big law. It’s a big statute with lots of pieces.

“Title 1 of the FISA law is what you see in the news that applies to U.S. citizens. That’s not what we’re talking about here.

“This is Title 7, Section 702. This is about foreign terrorists on foreign soil. That’s what this is about.”

The House ended up defeating an amendment which would have turned back the clock to the bad old days — pre-9/11 — when so-called “stove-piping” by intelligence agencies hamstrung their work on fighting terrorism.

“We go back to those days where we are flying blind on protecting our country from terrorism,” Ryan told his colleagues.

Action now moves to the U.S. Senate, which should take to heart Ryan’s words. Those who forget the lessons of 9/11 risk repeating them. It’s that simple — and this bill is that essential.