Pinkerton says essentially that the American public is okay with the government spying on them, if they believe that this activity will make them safer:
Based on what we've seen so far, Bush is in no danger of losing his job. In fact, if this controversy continues, W. Will likely go up in the polls. Why? Because the American people want to be safe. And they will surrender some of their rights to be safer. That political reality may infuriate hard-core civil libertarians, but it's true during all periods of wartime.He then goes on to cite numerous examples of how the government have been circumventing the spirit of the law for years:
All through the Cold War, for example, the American and British governments got around the rules against spying on their own people through a simple stratagem: Each government spied on the people of the other country, and then the two governments exchanged the resulting intelligence. This was "the Mid-Atlantic Swap," in which the U.K. Government Communications Headquarters spied on Americans, while the U.S. National Security Agency spied on Britons. It was cynical but legal.
The imperative of intelligence-gathering is bipartisan, at least at the presidential level. That's why Democrat Bill Clinton was willing to assert the same "inherent authority" of the presidency to bypass procedures on national security. And that's why surveillance programs with such delightful-sounding names as "Carnivore" emerged during the '90s.
Finally, Pinkerton goes for the kill asking what the intent of the Bush administration was:
There will be hearings and lawsuits galore over the new surveillance revelations, but the key question, in the minds of most folks, is motive. Did the Bush administration seek out information for political or personal gain, a la Richard Nixon? That would be an impeachable offense. Or, were the Bush folks so worried about threats to America that they bent the law - like in every episode of the counterterror TV show "24"? That's a winning hand for Bush.
What is the difference between perceived political or personal threats (ala Nixon) versus perceived security threats (ala Bush) from the constitution's perspective. I doubt there is very much difference. In both cases, the president is attempting to over-extend his executive power at the cost of the two other branches, which is very specifically spelled out in the constitution.
Spaulding takes a different approach to this issue:
Based on the facts as reported so far, none (Congress, the courts and, ultimately, the American people) of these appear to have operated as an effective check on this extraordinary exercise of presidential power.The problem was that a few (8) elected representatives who were briefed by Bush, were unable to share this information with their party leaders, their staff or their constituents:
They are provided only to the leadership of the House and Senate and of the intelligence committees, with no staff present. The eight are prohibited from saying anything about the briefing to anyone, including other intelligence panel members. The leaders for whom I worked never discussed the content of these briefings with me.
It is virtually impossible for individual members of Congress, particularly members of the minority party, to take any effective action if they have concerns about what they have heard in one of these briefings. It is not realistic to expect them, working alone, to sort through complex legal issues, conduct the kind of factual investigation required for true oversight and develop an appropriate legislative response....
The objectives of the surveillance program, as described in news reports, seem laudable. The government should be running to ground the contacts listed in a suspected terrorist's cell phone, for example. What is troubling is that this domestic spying is being done in apparent contravention of FISA, for reasons that still
are not clear.
FISA anticipates situations in which speed is essential. It allows the government to start eavesdropping without a court order and to keep it going for a maximum of three days. And while the FISA application process is often burdensome in routine cases, it can also move with remarkable speed when necessary, with applications written and approved in just a few hours.Perhaps the administration did not believe that these wiretaps would meet the FISA standard, which requires the government to have probable cause to believe that the target of the surveillance is an agent of a foreign power, which includes terrorists and spies. Yet, since 2001, FISA judges have reportedly reviewed more than 5,645 applications and rejected only four. The current judges were all hand-picked by the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who presumably felt that they had the right temperament and expertise to understand the national security imperatives as well as the need to protect civil liberties.
So the fundamental differences between these two commentaries are conservatives are alright with allowing their president to usurp civil liberties if they make them safer, would they feel the same way if it was President Hilary Clinton, or some other Democrat? I find this a bit amusing since most red states (who seem to receive the most homeland security funding) are probably not real terrorist targets anyway, but at least they feel safer. The other response says that it would have been relatively easy for the president to have complied with the law and averted this controversy, since the overwhelming majority of requests for FISA requests were approved.
As new information is released and various opinions are stated the same basic question remains and should be asked over again until we have a sufficient answer:
Why couldn't the president just get legal approval and follow the law?
FISA allows itself to be by-passed for up to 3 days in order to move on something timely and hot. There does not appear to have any reason, other than bad advice from his attorney general's and white counsel's for not following the procedures. Or is FISA really is insufficient, the work with congress to amend, change or create new legislation that allows for the new threats that exist now that did not in 1978. Personally, I think this the "new" threat is just an excuse and a lot of hooey.
I am still disturbedby the arrogance of the admission that he did it, and he is going to keep on doing it. (He sounds like Mel Brooks as Louis XVI in History of the Part 1.) He shows no remorse, he just keeps pushing this republic towards a dictatorship and an imperialistic empire. I am all for protecting the US from further attacks, but I a more for the protection of the civil rights of its citizens, which is what the founding fathers fought so hard for so many years ago.
More from Ellen Goodman and Clarence Page
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