News Item Everyone Should See
This is not some liberal smear source, except to those who have accepted the extreme Right Wing's premise that all main stream media are lying shills for the left.
But for the rest of us non-conspiracy theorists...
The New York Times reports that President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to tap phone calls and e-mails without warrants.
Now, in the interest of fairness, at least according to this report, this only affected international calls and e-mails (calls and e-mails from the U.S. to foreign countries and vice versa). Still, it marks an unprecedented level of unchecked, unmonitored and unregulated spying on U.S. citizens.
By the way, for those who insist that, as part of the Main Stream Media, the NY Times is a liberal rag not to be trusted, note that the story is actually over a year old. The Administration asked the Times not to run the story when they first got wind of it, over a year ago, and they (the Times) capitulated.
It's interesting to think what effect this might have had on the election, had it come out in a timely fashion. Right about the time John Kerry was being maligned as a fear-monger by touting the idea that the cost of the Iraq war could rise to over 200 billion dollars (gee, he was right), no one was hearing that President Bush was secretly overriding the Fourth Amendment.
The only good news to come out of this is that news of this violation of basic Constitutional rights snapped a number of Senators back to reality and caused them pause before rubber stamping the odious sections of the Patriot Act.
Liam.
P.S. The NY Times article quoted is not the only one out there. Links to some additional reporting on the issue:
Yahoo News.
Bloomberg report on Secretary of State Rice's statement on the issue
An AP report also on Yahoo that Bush personally authorized the program more than 3 dozen times since October 2001.
Washington Post's story on the reaction to the story on Capitol Hill.
posted by Liam at 12/17/2005 09:06:00 AM
9 Comments:
Man oh man. Apologists are out in force. The right wing talking points on this issue seem to boil down to:
1) This is important to protect us.
2) It doesn't matter because it's only used against terrorists.
The problem, and it really feels like a lot of people just don't get this, is that people aren't incorruptible, and they aren't infallible.
Our laws, and the way our government works, is set up the way it is for a reason: To protect against anyone getting too much power.
Look, let’s assume for the moment that Bush’s motives are 100% pure, and that he’s got absolute control over everyone in his party and in his government and can be 100% certain that nothing is abused. These are not facts I believe, but for the purpose of this response, let’s assume this best-of-all-possible-worlds actually exists.
Bush will not be President forever. In fact, he’ll be President for less than 3 more years, and then he’ll be replaced. And that person will be replaced in 4 or 8 years after that, and that replacement again in 4 or 8 years, etc.
Sooner or later, one of these replacements isn’t going to be a moral paragon, with only the best interests of his country at heart and the perfect understanding of the world necessary to not make any mistakes, and we will have handed this person a government in which he or she can have the NSA snoop on anyone without a warrant (if they’re inclined to use this weapon improperly, does anyone REALLY believe they’d be stopped by merely having to assert that there was terrorism involved?).
This follows the jailing of people as “enemy combatants” as too much power. If I make a phone call out of the country (I have, several times recently, as my parents and my sister took long trips through Europe and Hong Kong, respectively), should I reasonably have to think that the NSA is listening in on my conversations?
How do they know this is only used against terrorists? If they know who the terrorists are, why can’t they get a warrant? And if they don’t, and are simply using this sweeping power to listen in on anyone they choose, then clearly they are violating the Fourth Amendment protections we’re supposed to enjoy.
I’ve said it before, I will say it again, I would rather live in a less safe America that stands for the noble principles it was founded on than live in a safer America in which our rights slowly erode away to nothing by a President who believes that as President he has dictator-level powers to investigate and jail citizens on nothing more than his say so.
Liam.
Sunday, December 18, 2005 7:25:00 PM
More information:
There is a section of U.S. law that the President has been citing saying that it gives him the right to allow warrantless searches on foreign agents and officials. The Administration is spinning this to say that what they did was not illegal.
He also says that the reason this warrantless spying was necessary was due to the constraints of time, implying that taking the time to get the warrant would have caused us to miss important information.
And thus does the Administration hoist itself on its own petard. Because the law which they cite DOES allow the President that latitude... as long as he or his agents (in this case, the NSA) file a RETROACTIVE request for warrant within 72 hours of the search, said request citing the reason why time sensitivity prevented them from getting a prior warrant.
So nevermind that they have yet to explain how they could know WHO to tap (such that they were only tapping foreign agents and officials) and yet not have enough time to get a warrant for the tap, the law ALREADY gave them the leeway to get the legally mandated warrant after the fact.
More proof that Bush believes that he is, as President, above the law, and one more reason why we need to get him out, before he does irreperable damage to our nation.
Liam.
Monday, December 19, 2005 2:42:00 PM
I know we are both quoting from "talking points" being used by right or left wing "news" shows on the radio or TV, but the heads of both the Congress and Senate have been reported to 12 times about this by the Administration, and so have the judges given the responsibility of oversight of the NSA. This includes Pelosi and Reid (both admitting this) who have chosen not to remark about it until now. I think the NYT took extreme liberties in reporting this as a "secretly authorized" command in order to put the President in the worst possible light.
As for the next generation of Presidents using this power I agree we need to be careful, but in wartimes more exteme things have happened as during WW2 when Japanese Americans were put in concentration camps. I don't see all of the Islamic practitioners nor even the Imams of Islam put in said camps. I am not really comfortable with extreme powers granted our leaders during war being used in peace time, but I do understand their use during war. I think if you look at it in a different way ie suppose Kerry was our President and did this...do you think the NYT would have used that headline when they new the word "secret" wasn't true?
Monday, December 19, 2005 8:10:00 PM
I don't know. But... here's the kicker. If Kerry had done it, or if Gore had taken office in 2001 and had done it, most Right wingers would be screaming about it... and so would I.
I firmly believe that. This is not a partisan issue for me at all. Any time someone whittles away at the freedoms and securities and rights we have as citizens, I stand up and shout, because that is the time to shout.
When the car first starts to roll because you left it in neutral, that's the time to try to stop it. If you wait, if you say "Ah, it's only going 1 mph, no big deal", then once it's picked up speed, it's a lot harder to stop.
I heard a quote today from a Republican member of the Senate (I forget which one) who said that yes indeed they were briefed about this particular policy, BUT that key and crucial aspects of it were omitted, and that he personally would have had a lot bigger problem with it had he been given the full story.
Which, come to think of it, is a recurring theme. More and more members of both houses of Congress, from both parties, are coming out and saying that the idea that Congress saw the same intelligence on Iraq that the President did is just false.
It appears to me that this President believes he is above the law and, rather than accepting their Constitutionally mandated "advise and consent" role, he seems to figure what Congress doesn't know won't hurt them.
I quote it often, but to me it really is very wise and true: Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
Ben Franklin was a smart man, and so I just don't buy the war time argument. And to me, saying "Worse has been done in the past" isn't much of a defense. Yes, the internment camps for Japanese Americans are a dark mark on our nation's history. But this isn't a competition to see how low we can sink, hopefully that moment in our history taught us a lesson and we will never return to that.
And the fact is that Bush could easily have had his searches WITHIN the law, merely by submitting them to a judge within 72 hours of executing the spying activity. So far, no one has managed to explain to me what this could POSSIBLY have harmed in the name of national security... except that Bush doesn't believe he should be held to the same checks and balances all Presidents have had to accept.
And I have to say that the more someone doesn't believe they require or should have to put up with oversight, the more we as a nation need to DEMAND oversight.
Liam.
Monday, December 19, 2005 10:07:00 PM
I surely understand your comments on being on this same side if Kerry had done it as has Bush, but the comment I was making was that the NYT would not have made that headlines had it been a Democratic President instead of a Republican.
AS for your Republican who said that he would have objected had he known more, could you please be more explicit. I know we have talked about "talking points" before, but when I hear about some Republican, I start to wonder about if that was a talking point from one particular pundit or another that one of us accepts for gospel because it validates our point without knowing from whence it comes... I have been guilty of the same and admit it freely.
Monday, December 19, 2005 11:05:00 PM
Unfortunately, as I said, I didn't catch the name. It was on NPR as I was driving in to work. They played his statement, and then the announcer said "Republican [XYZ] of [State] responding to the recent story".
I'm not shy about citing sources when I have them, and I try to be honest when I don't know them, so you can be properly skeptical.
I think a lot of Congresspeople have been guilty in the aftermath of 9/11 of absenting their advise and consent roll, for the reasons many Administration supporters continue to hype. We'd been attacked and no one wanted to be the one playing politics with the safety of the United States.
But enough time has passed, and Congress wants its role back, and the President is having a hard time living under the yoke.
Put another way... if there are any members of Congress who really DID know about this practice and gave tacit or specific approval, then I think they, too, are guilty of unconstitutional behavior and should be out of office.
We KNOW the President did, and we know from the statements he continues to make that he thinks it's within his power to play fast and loose with the Constitution.
(There's a story floating about, but one which I haven't found the source for yet (which makes it suspect) that while being warned by his staff about the possible unconstitutionality of one policy or another, he returned with "Stop throwing the Constitution in my face. It's just a damn piece of paper!".)
But believe me, I think there are a lot of Congressmen who need to leave office as well, over support for the Patriot Act and support for the insane "Budget Deficit Reduction Act" which cuts 50 billion dollars from the budget... and then gives away 95 billion in additional tax cuts.
The 9 who voted AGAINST making torture illegal should be thrown out.
Gotta get moving this morning. Good debate, I'm having fun!
Liam.
Tuesday, December 20, 2005 7:51:00 AM
Whoops, I didn't mean to ignore your comment on the NYT headline.
I think we're going to just have to agree to disagree on that one. The whole canard about the "liberal media" does not seem to me to be entirely accurate, for a number of reasons.
First, theres the whole comparison between how the media treated Clinton vs how they've treated Bush. Clinton was excoriated over every little accusation, often without facts or merit, and the media were often slow to retract items which were proven false.
Bush, on the other hand, has enjoyed a large amount of media support for much of his Presidency. Granted, the much-discussed 9/11 changed our focus, but it seems to me that the mainstream media has shown extreme restraint, bordering on absenting their responsisbilities to the public, with this President.
Also, keep in mind that with the relaxation of the rules, more and more media outlets are owned by a few huge media companies. Large companies are traditionally conservative, because conservatives tend to be more pro-corporation over citizens.
So while the old image of the newspaper being an independent voice, and one which tended to be more liberal and idealistic, more and more the Main Stream Media is now the Corporate Media, and the wild liberal slant which was probably over-stated anyway has largely gone away, replaced with either a lack of willingness to challenge ANYONE in power, or actually a slight right wing slant.
So to answer your question about the NYT, I don't honestly know what they would have reported. After a 9/11 style event and several years of having kept themselves out of the game, if some of the misdeeds which seem to be coming out about THIS President had come out about that one, I think they'd have had the same response.
Liam.
Tuesday, December 20, 2005 8:22:00 AM
An admittedly liberal site, Talking Points Memo, has posted this letter supposedly a copy of a letter sent by Sen. Jay Rockefeller to the Vice President after being briefed on the spying activities.
He expresses his unease with the topic, and says that he is unable to endorse the plan. He explicitly says that he is constrained from discussing it with staff or counsel, making it difficult for him to determine the actual constitutionality of it.
Liam.
Tuesday, December 20, 2005 11:05:00 AM
OK, I got some more information on "Pelosi & Reid both admitted it".
According to Harry Reid, he was notified of the program, but not until many months after it had already been in effect.
Nancy Pelosi says that the notification was just that, not a consultation with Congress but merely a notification, and considered top secret. Which means that while yes, certain members of Congress were notified, they were effectively stifled. They were not asked for approval or even comment, and had they discussed it, they would have been guilty of releasing classified information.
Now, it would have been nice if at least one of those Senators who knew (either Democratic or Republican) had seen fit to recognize the inherent illegality of the program and had figured out a way to do something about it within the law.
But they were not given any official way to comment on the program, merely "notified" of it, and were told it was classified, meaning discussing it during war time was treason.
Hardly the Congressional oversight and approval which should be involved in something this big.
Liam.
Tuesday, December 20, 2005 3:11:00 PM
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