Domestic Spying
The quote below made by President Bush in a speech in Kansas doesn’t do justice to seeing his delivery in person or on video. It lacks the sneers, the incongruous smile when discussing a serious topic, and the heh at the end of the sentence. He talks to his (usually) chosen audience as if they are insiders who know he is saying things that he has to say for public consumption but he knows neither he nor they believe.
Beyond the facial tics, however, are the words. The justification that “lawyers” reviewed his decision to allow NSA to listen to conversations of American citizens is quite disingenuous following the two recent Supreme Court nominee hearings. In both the Rogers and Alito hearings, the nominees went to great lengths to state that the work they did as US Government attorneys should not be represented as bearing on their future judgments as justices. Their reason for this position was that they were just doing their jobs as lawyerly advocates and giving their bosses what they wanted. This position was trumpeted by the White House to counter Democratic opposition. But a few weeks later that position is reversed and we are now asked to believe that if Justice Department lawyers approved a spying policy, no other review is necessary.
The Administration hides behind National Security and refuses to explain the key question about this issue: why did they have to circumvent FISA? If it is a matter of technology and the number of intercepts is so large that the FISA system would be overwhelmed, than that is a passable argument that would probably have led Congress to change the law. But both Attorney General Gonzales and Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the former NSA chief who is now Deputy Director of National Intelligence said yesterday that the use of this policy has been limited. If that is not an outright lie than why isn’t FISA adequate? It contains the option to wiretap with no need for prior approval (subsequent notification is all that is required).
This Administration continues to arrogantly do what it wants and justify its actions by saying whatever it thinks it can get away with. It claims that if they had this policy in effect prior to 9/11, they would have prevented it, conveniently forgetting that they had data pointing to 9/11 in advance but were unable to use it effectively.
This is a -- I repeat to you, even though you hear words, "domestic spying," these are not phone calls within the United States. It's a phone call of an al Qaeda, known al Qaeda suspect, making a phone call into the United States. I'm mindful of your civil liberties, and so I had all kinds of lawyers review the process.
Beyond the facial tics, however, are the words. The justification that “lawyers” reviewed his decision to allow NSA to listen to conversations of American citizens is quite disingenuous following the two recent Supreme Court nominee hearings. In both the Rogers and Alito hearings, the nominees went to great lengths to state that the work they did as US Government attorneys should not be represented as bearing on their future judgments as justices. Their reason for this position was that they were just doing their jobs as lawyerly advocates and giving their bosses what they wanted. This position was trumpeted by the White House to counter Democratic opposition. But a few weeks later that position is reversed and we are now asked to believe that if Justice Department lawyers approved a spying policy, no other review is necessary.
The Administration hides behind National Security and refuses to explain the key question about this issue: why did they have to circumvent FISA? If it is a matter of technology and the number of intercepts is so large that the FISA system would be overwhelmed, than that is a passable argument that would probably have led Congress to change the law. But both Attorney General Gonzales and Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the former NSA chief who is now Deputy Director of National Intelligence said yesterday that the use of this policy has been limited. If that is not an outright lie than why isn’t FISA adequate? It contains the option to wiretap with no need for prior approval (subsequent notification is all that is required).
This Administration continues to arrogantly do what it wants and justify its actions by saying whatever it thinks it can get away with. It claims that if they had this policy in effect prior to 9/11, they would have prevented it, conveniently forgetting that they had data pointing to 9/11 in advance but were unable to use it effectively.
posted by John Weiss at 12:19 PM
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