Updated and bumped: OK, Threat Level got the quote wrong.  The actual quote from her floor statement (which I have checked against the C-SPAN video) is the following:

We take an oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic.  In that Preamble to that Constitution, we must provide for the common defense.  Essential to honoring that commitment to protect the American people is to have the operational intelligence that will help us do that.

When I first went on the Intelligence Committee, our focus was on force protection.  Our troops in the field depend on timely and reliable intelligence to make the decisions necessary to keep them safe and to do their job.  It is still a primary responsibility of our Intelligence Committee.

In addition to that, we have the fight on the war on terrorism.  The fight against terrorism wherever it may exist.  Good intelligence is necessary for us to know the plans of the terrorist and to defeat those plans.  So we can’t go without a bill.  That’s just simply not an option.  But to have a bill we must have a bill that does not violate the Constitution of the United States and this bill does not.

She goes on to explain that the bill is better than the Senate Bill, yadda yadda yadda.  Except the Senate Bill is dead, and all that the House had to do was nothing.  Sit on its hands, or maybe just fix the single loophole in FISA.   Now it’s weak sauce, I think, to hold the provide-for-the-common-defense preamble clause as the reason for gutting the 4th Amendment, but at least she got her oath right, so I retract that criticism.  The rest of my objections stand.  Today was a contemptible capitulation by the Democratic leadership to the Republican Party’s war on the rule of law, one in which Speaker Pelosi participated.

[end update]  

From a Threat Level report on the House gutting the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, and striking a blow against accountability and the rule of law:

“We took an oath to defend the country from all enemies, foreign and domestic,” Pelosi said. “Good intelligence is necessary for us to know the plans of the terrorists, so we can’t not have a bill.”

Unless this is a radical misquote, this is false in two ways.  The trivial falsehood is that this travesty is necessary.  The only thing that is necessary for “good intelligence” (aside from having an Administration that actually gives a damn about it) is the trivial work to patch the one hole in FISA to allow the Feds to listen in when a non-US person (non-citizen outside the US) calls another non-US person, but the contact is routed through the US.  A get-out-of-jail-free card for the telcos is not necessary, nor is the rest of the bill, as has been ably shown elsewhere.

The truly enormous falsehood is the nature of the oath that Speaker Pelosi asserts she took.  Here, in full, is the oath of office for members of the House of Representatives:

“I, (name of Member), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”

I am one of Speaker Pelosi’s constituents, and (unless the quote here is completely wrong) I will not be voting for Speaker Pelosi in November, nor, I suspect, ever again.  She doesn’t actually seem to know her most solemn duty, the only duty to which she’s sworn an actual oath as a member of the people’s House, is to uphold the Constitution of the United States, including our Fourth Amendment, even though the Republicans might campaign against the Constitution.  For those who may have forgotten (including, apparently, Speaker Pelosi):

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”