The Republican National Committee has a new ad warning that Harry Reid, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama are playing into terrorists’ hands by trying to block permanent changes to surveillance law. Not that Republicans haven’t been playing tough over this issue. They’ve also tried to assert that if the Protect America Act is allowed to expire, all intelligence-gathering will come to a halt. That’s not true, although it could be harder to monitor new targets.

But what’s noteworthy about this RNC ad is that we’ve seen it before, in the Johnson-Goldwater campaign from 1964. The famous (or infamous, if you supported Goldwater) “Daisy” spot was only aired once, but may have so successfully stoked Americans’ fears about nuclear annihilation that it helped LBJ win the election. The RNC ad all but says Americans will be killed by Al Qaeda if Clinton or Obama win the presidency. Expect to see the full-fledged Daisy version as we get closer to November.

Putting that aside for the moment, what’s perhaps most politically notable about the GOP-Dem fight over the Protect America Act is that the Democrats have been unable to capitalize on their position for their own gain. They don’t really want to bankrupt telecommunications companies who helped the NSA monitor phone calls and e-mails after 9/11, even though they did so without traditional warrants. And neither Democrats nor Republicans believe that the law shouldn’t be changed to make it easier for intelligence agencies to do their job. The politics of this debate have become so basic that there’s little room left for serious debate or discussion of broader implications from a change to law, and whether those should be taken into consideration.

I think that if you assess this fight purely on the politics, Democrats are once again coming out on the losing end. They seem either unwilling or unable to assert an alternative to the kind of line the RNC is putting out in its video, which may have some fair points but obviously is not designed to encourage an intellectual discussion. This is all very strange, because Democrats have proposed dramatic changes to surveillance law that their traditional allies in the civil liberties community find repugnant. It’s not as if Dems are truly obstructionist on this stuff. But they are letting themselves be painted as such.

Saying he wanted “to be very clear in addressing the Iranian nuclear capability,” Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell told a Senate committee today that Iran continues down a path that could lead to construction of a nuclear weapon. Reiterating what appears to be a coordinated line of thinking, McConnell said that Iran is still enriching uranium and building missiles capable of delivering a nuclear warhead. These are two of the three legs in the stool of Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

While not refuting the judgment of his intelligence agencies that Iran halted the third leg, a set of covert, military-run nuclear weapons activities, McConnell clearly wanted to tamp down the dramatic headline of the recent National Intelligence Estimate, which gave the strong impression that Iran’s nuclear program is, at least temporarily, on ice.

We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons design and weaponization activities, as well as its covert military uranium conversion and enrichment-related activities, for at least several years. Because of intelligence gaps, [the Department of Energy] and the [National Intelligence Council] assess with only moderate confidence that all such activities were halted. We assess with moderate confidence that Tehran had not restarted these activities as of mid-2007, but since they comprised an unannounced secret effort which Iran attempted to hide, we do not know if these activities have been restarted.

For good measure, McConnell added, “I note again that two activities relevant to a nuclear weapons capability continue: uranium enrichment that will enable the production of fissile material and development of long-range ballistic missile systems.”

This is now the official counterargument to the NIE. The fact that these statements come from the man who is ultimately responsible for that document is, as best I can tell, unprecedented.

The list is growing. Israel has now come out against the United States’ National Intelligence Estimate on Iran, declaring that the country is three years away from obtaining offensive nuclear capabilities. Mossad chief Meir Dagan presented that assessment to a Knesset committee Monday, and added that the NIE “pulls the rug out from under” attempts to halt the Iranian program diplomatically, “leaving Israel to face the threat alone.”

Who is out there actually defending the NIE? Israel now joins the French, the President of the United States, and the U.S. Director of National Intelligence in concluding that Iran is still on the path to a nuke, despite the NIE’s judgment that Iran halted its nuclear weaponization program years ago. Like the other NIE skeptics, Israel homes in on two key pillars of a nuclear program, including uranium enrichment and ballistic missile construction, and concludes that Iran’s nuclear ambitions are alive and thriving. (President Bush made this case publicly, as well.)

Israel’s departure with the NIE differed in that it rebuked the document itself as diplomatically counterproductive, something that, so far, only staunch critics of the intelligence community in the United States have done. Israel’s reaction is hardly surprising, of course, given its particularly precarious position in the region, and its long-standing insistence that Iran is either close or very close to developing a nuclear weapon.

But the fact that Israel is now on record against the U.S. conclusion is an important development, and could signal the start of a new international alliance, backed by President Bush himself, against the NIE’s conclusion, which will continue to be painted as rosy, overly optimistic, and fundamentally off-the-mark because it doesn’t rank the enrichment and missile programs highly enough in the final calculation. Will the authors of the NIE defend their work again, as they did so forcefully when their key judgments were declassified late last year? Stay tuned.

In the meantime, here’s something from the vault on Israel’s historic insistence that Iran was practically within reach of a nuke. In October 2006, I sat in on a meeting between then-Congressman Curt Weldon, a Pennsylvania Republican, and Daniel Ayalon, then Israel’s ambassador to the United States. (I was writing a profile of Weldon, and the two men had previously scheduled this meeting in Weldon’s office.) The conversation turned to Iran’s nuclear ambitions, a topic that had possessed Weldon’s interest. Like the Israelis, he insisted that Iran was closer to a weapon than most people thought, and that the United States perilously underestimated the regime.

Weldon told Ayalon that Iran would have a nuclear weapon in two years. A military attaché who had accompanied Ayalon to the meeting replied, with a smile, “We say less.” It was a chilling moment, in and of itself. But it also stood out because, at the time, such a dire assessment was at odds with most experts’ opinion, as well as the judgment of the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies. They estimated then that Iran’s weapons program was at least five years from maturity and probably more, given Iran’s difficulty producing the necessary materials for a bomb. It’s worth noting that, around the time of this meeting, the intelligence community would have been in the early stages of its reassessment of the Iranian program, which resulted in last year’s NIE and the about-face on the previous assessment.

Several noted computer security experts have an interesting paper in the current issue of IEEE Security & Privacy Magazine. Rather than critique the civil liberties implications of the Protect America Act, the “fix” to intelligence wiretapping and surveillance law being debated in Congress, the experts examine potential security weaknesses in the surveillance system run by the National Security Agency, the system that the act affects.

The authors’ essential concerns stem from the design of the surveillance system itself, which they regard as inherently—and perhaps unavoidably—prone to abuse, both from outside forces and, more likely, government insiders.

First, they argue that the “surveillance architecture implied by the Protect America Act will, by its very nature, capture some purely domestic communications…” This seems plausible, considering the design of modern telecom networks, which the authors do a good job of summarizing in easy-to-understand terms. They spend a fair amount of the paper describing how the NSA’s system would inevitably capture purely domestic communications without a warrant—which would be illegal, even if unintentional—and also how hackers could theoretically penetrate the system and steal communications and other intelligence. The authors acknowledge that the design of the NSA’s surveillance apparatus is still secret, but they base their assessments of how it works on press accounts, changes in surveillance law, and on accounts by a former AT&T employee, Mark Klein, about an alleged NSA listening post in San Francisco that siphons off traffic from the company’s network.

Another fascinating aspect of the surveillance system involves the use of call detail records, which I’ve written about in some detail. Specifically, the authors are concerned that CDRs, which the government probably can obtain without a warrant, can reveal an enormous amount of personal information about an individual, even though the records only contain so-called “meta data,” such as when a call was placed, what number was called, how long the call lasted, and so on. Could CDRs be a productive form of warantless surveillance?

The authors also point out that CDR information can be inaccurate. The NSA uses meta data to decide which conversations and e-mails to listen to or read. So, if the targeting data is bad, how can the NSA be sure it’s intercepting the appropriate communications? To remedy any potential abuse, intentional or otherwise, the authors recommend “frequent ex post facto review of CDR-based real-time targeting.”

There are some indications in the Protect America Act that this review would occur. The government would be required, for instance, to demonstrate to a secret intelligence court that the means by which it determines the location of certain targets is “reasonable.” (The location of a target is a key factor in whether the NSA can intercept without warrants.) But it remains to be seen how this ex post facto review would work in practice, and whether it would involve CDRs.

A number of the authors have quite a history opposing various enhancements to government surveillance of telecom networks, but their report is by no means an outright condemnation of the pending law or NSA’s activities. It’s worth a read just for the technical explanations of how very difficult it is to intercept communications on the net. But they also offer some constructive suggestions and cautionary tales for a surveillance system that we’ll all be living with for the foreseeable future.

So now, in addition to the Director of National Intelligence, and the President of the United States, add the French government to the dissent column on the explosive National Intelligence Estimate on Iran‘s nuclear weapons program.

Herve Morin, the French defense minister, was in Washington yesterday, and he said that “coordinated information from a number of intelligence services leads us to believe that Iran has not given up its wish to pursue its [nuclear] program,” and is “continuing to develop” it. Morin (unsurprisingly) called upon the International Atomic Energy Agency to “continue carrying out all the necessary investigations” into Iran‘s nuclear activities. The IAEA has also doubted U.S. intelligence.

The French dissent is significant on a number of levels. First, France is a key ally in the administration’s hard line against the Iranian regime, and having their defense minister sound such a provocative note of caution could help put the wind back in the administration’s sails as it tries to rally international pressure on Iran. When the NIE reversed earlier claims that Iran was pursuing a nuclear weapon, it presumably undercut the administration’s push to impose harsher international sanctions on Iran.

Second, note that Morin said “a number of intelligence services” had provided information that led France not to concur with the United States’ key judgments—ones, it should be noted, that the president sought to distance himself from the very day they were declassified. France is saying that a community of nations, which certainly includes Israel, have pooled their notes, and that they find plenty of reason to believe the United States is missing the mark. This contrary assessment probably hinges on Iran’s continued pursuit of enriched uranium, as well as its ongoing ballistic missile program. (See my previous post on how President Bush homed in on these legs in Iran’s nuclear platform.) France has expressed great concern over Iran’s pursuit of ballistic missiles, which could threaten Israel and U.S. bases in the Middle East.

The Russian and Chinese governments—whose support for sanctions is key at the United Nations—haven’t come out in opposition to the NIE, but it doesn’t hurt President Bush’s case to keep up the pressure by having a key European ally come over to his side, especially one that feels threatened by Iran. The United Nations Security Council this week considered a new proposal from the United States and France, among others, for new sanctions against Iran.

President Bush offered fresh evidence in his State of the Union address last night that not all decision-makers share the intelligence community’s view on Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Although he was remarkably restrained in his rhetoric–particularly in comparison to years past–Bush homed in on Iran’s uranium enrichment and ballistic missile programs to remind us that the country still poses a mortal threat.

Tehran is also developing ballistic missiles of increasing range and continues to develop its capability to enrich uranium, which could be used to create a nuclear weapon. [Note: The recent National Intelligence Estimate on Iran's nuclear program doesn't contradict him on this point.] … Our message to the leaders of Iran is also clear: Verifiably suspend your nuclear enrichment, so negotiations can begin. And to rejoin the community of nations, come clean about your nuclear intentions and past actions, stop your oppression at home and cease your support for terror abroad. But above all, know this: America will confront those who threaten our troops, we will stand by our allies and we will defend our vital interests in the Persian Gulf.

The NIE concluded that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003, but it narrowly defined said program as “Iran’s nuclear weapon design and weaponization work,” as well as its covert work to convert and enrich uranium. In other words, this assessment does not cover Iran’s civilian enrichment work, which holds so-called “breakout potential” for a weapons program, nor does it cover work on building a missile to deliver a bomb. Still, it seems the community’s view is that a full weapons program cannot come to fruition without the key weaponization piece.

The president, though, clearly thinks otherwise, and he’s not alone. No less than the Director of National Intelligence, Mike McConnell, said recently that he thinks–apparently despite the NIE’s findings–that Iran is on the path to obtaining a nuclear weapon.

This all could be evidence of a high-level split between the intelligence community and its customers. But there’s another possibility. Intelligence is a special policy input, but it is, in the end, just one input. It’s usually a mistake to take any single NIE or intelligence stream as dispositive. The president learned that painful lesson in the run-up to war in Iraq. Some might find it refreshing that this administration, even if in its final days, is not once again hanging its policy towards a key Middle Eastern country on inherently murky intelligence. It just may be that this time the country in question actually does have nuclear weapons, despite what the intelligence community believes.

President Bush has signed a directive that formally kicks off what intelligence reporters have been chronicling for months: The National Security Agency, the nation’s electronic eavesdropping agency, will take a new, presumably aggressive role in responding to Internet-based attacks against government agencies.

The Washington Post broke news of Bush’s directive on Friday, and the Baltimore Sun had been following this in considerable detail for months. Of particular interest is the distinctly military character of this new plan, known simply as the “cyber initiative” inside government. According to the Post, once the NSA determines that a hostile nation or Internet threat is targeting a government system, the Pentagon can strike back.

The Pentagon can plan attacks on adversaries’ networks if, for example, the NSA determines that a particular server in a foreign country needs to be taken down to disrupt an attack on an information system critical to the U.S. government. That could include responding to an attack against a private-sector network, such as the telecom industry’s, sources said.

Don’t miss the importance of that last sentence. Our government’s critical and sensitive information systems run on or are dependent upon privately-owned networks. An attack on AT&T, under this new initiative, can constitute an attack on the nation. The military’s cyber attack capabilities are something of an open secret. Commanders love not to talk about them in on-the-record interviews.

This new initiative is meant to send a signal to our chief Cyber Cold War adversary, China: “We are going on the offensive.” This campaign will, in some ways, be more significant than the war on terrorism. It will cost billions of dollars, implicate just as many of our most important policies–from privacy to secrecy to the authorities of the intelligence agencies–and ultimately could be a prelude to more overt, off-line conflicts. Settle in. This will be a long ride.

The Protect America Act, a six-month modification to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that directly affects the National Security Agency’s terrorist surveillance program, expires on Feb. 1. It’s looking more and more like the Congress will punt on this one, passing another temporary extension–perhaps as short as one month–while lawmakers try and sort out a compromise on the law’s most intractable issue: immunity for telecom companies that assisted the government in the NSA program after the 9/11 attacks.

The fact that there has yet been no bargain on this point is an excellent measure of just how politically poisonous the debate over intelligence gathering has become. When Protect America was enacted last summer, no one thought a permanent law would be stymied by the immunity debate. As I wrote last month, immunity is actually a Trojan Horse for the administration’s critics to pry loose more information about classified intelligence activities.

Very few lawmakers honestly believe that the telecom companies acted in bad faith when they helped the government monitor phone calls and e-mails, and very few want to expose those companies to potentially devastating lawsuits. There is also very little practical difference in the kind of permanent eavesdropping laws that Republicans and Democrats want to enact. (See Ben Wittes’ excellent analysis on this fromThe New Republic.)

Given their positions, there’s no logical reason, or even a very principled one, why congressional Democrats and Republicans and the White House can’t hammer out a deal here. The FISA debate has now become utterly political. And despite how one feels about the merits of this law or its proposed changes, history shows us that the mix of politics and intelligence is a dangerous one.

Lawrence Wright of The New Yorker has a new (very long) piece on DNI Mike McConnell, the culmination of an apparently extraordinary level of access and series of intimate interviews. (Wright and McConnell ate together and flew once on the DNI’s private plane.)

While I hate to say the piece didn’t do much to illuminate McConnell’s character, it also may have buried the lead. In the third to last paragraph of the 18-page article, the DNI drops what I consider a mini-bombshell: He thinks that Iran “is on the path to get a nuclear weapon.”

That assessment stands in contrast to the intelligence community’s official, coordinated judgment that Iran shut down its nuclear weapons program in the fall of 2003. That was the remarkable turn-about contained in the unclassified key judgments of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran, which McConnell released–after publicly vowing not to–last month.

Now, the NIE was uncertain about whether Iran was restarting its nuclear weapons program, and it certainly left open the possibility, but it seems to me a dramatic public pronouncement for the DNI to say he personally believes there’s no doubt about Iran’s intentions.

Here’s the passage in question from Wright’s article.

When we last spoke, McConnell said, ‘There’s no doubt in this observer’s mind that Iran is on the path to get a nuclear weapon. It will force an arms race in the region.’

As Wright chronicles in his piece, McConnell has recently shown a tendency to say things off-the-cuff that turn out to be not quite accurate, but this statement is rather emphatic. Indeed, the term “no doubt” is a much bolder assertion than the intelligence community’s mark of “high confidence,” used in NIEs to indicate that the assessment is based on high-quality information. One has to presume that, as the nation’s top intelligence official, McConnell has access to the very best information. So what does he know that we don’t after reading the NIE?

For background on the build-up to the NIE’s release, see my story from National Journal last month, “The Other About Face on Iran.”

My initial take on the Iran NIE.